


Dragonborn

by Camelittle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Antarctica, Dragons, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Penguins, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:10:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 57,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4660941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camelittle/pseuds/Camelittle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In some ways, this is a story about climate change. And dragons. Involving a trip to Antarctica, a colony of penguins, mystery and subterfuge. But mostly, it follows the bumps, meanderings, and mishaps along the path of a pair of idiots falling in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1: Camelot City, Albion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Candymacaron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candymacaron/gifts).



> So many people to thank! First of all, enormous thanks to the mods of the brilliant aftercamlann fest, and to my patient beta readers, Archaeologist_d, plot-hole-finder general, and Tari_Sue, mistress of punctuation and summary-writing. Any remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone.  
> Especial thanks to my super-talented partner, artist Candymacaron. Go and check out her [Dragonborn art masterpost](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4619712) and leave all the love for her fabulous and incredible art. It’s been such a pleasure working with you,Candy!  
> Finally, the chatzy crew. You know who you are! It's been great hanging out with you guys.

**PART ONE: CAMELOT CITY**

When Morgana flounced out in a cloud of self-righteousness and pique, it left a vacancy in Arthur’s flat. A vacancy which his girlfriend, Gwen, promptly persuaded him to fill with the latest item that she’d collected for her hobby.

Other people had hobbies like rock climbing, stamp collecting or music. Gwen collected lost causes. This was just one of the many things that Arthur loved about her.

Of course, if he’d known at the time who this particular lost cause would turn out to be, he’d have said no straight away. But as it was, when she kissed his cheek on her way out to her voluntary morning at _Camelot City Blind School_ , she left him only with a lingering whiff of _Miss Dior_ , and without the required sense of impending doom.

The bell rang, and he buzzed the guy up. It was only when he opened the door that the realisation crashed over him, cold and shocking like an ocean wave.

All words of commiseration and welcome fled.

“You,” he choked out, instead.

The guy stood there, gaping, the start of a smile fading and being replaced by an apprehensive lip-bite, his bag falling to the ground with a thud.

“Er.” He looked behind him, as if searching for an escape route. “Oh. Gwen didn’t tell me you were _that_ Arthur. I… I mean… I didn’t realise—”

Arthur sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The things you do for love.

“Well. I suppose you’d better come in.” Arthur stood back and gestured towards the interior of the flat with a wave of his hand.

But the guy just stood there, chewing relentlessly at his lip until Arthur wanted to yell at him to stop, or it would bleed.

“Are you sure you still…?”

“Yes, yes, come on.” Arthur rolled his eyes. “I can be civil, you know, Martin or whatever your name is.”

“Merlin.” The bloke eyed him warily as he sidled past. “It’s Merlin, not Martin. So I’ll just…”

Feeling his mouth twist into a resentful sneer, Arthur let the door crash shut behind him, and the guy, Merlin, actually flinched.

“In here,” Arthur growled, pushing open the door to the room Morgana had so recently vacated. Its decor was still eclectic; Morgana fancied herself as a bit of an artist, and had hand-painted a roaring dragon that encircled the room, its huge maw gaping and belching fire. And of course, Morgana being Morgana, the subject matter was nothing if not a personal dig at him.

“You can paint that ugly thing over if you want,” he added, waving vaguely at it and trying not to let his distaste show too much.

“I like it,” said Merlin, dumping his bag on the neatly made bed and walking over to the window. Outside, Arthur knew, there was a view over the dull red rooftops towards the iron-grey sea. It would be rough and white-flecked on a day like today, like the brooding clouds that gathered over it. It was a decent room, if you ignored the horrible mural.

“Well, I hate it."

Merlin turned back to him. Arthur’s dislike for the mural must have showed on his face, because Merlin looked all confused and wary.

“Look, about that thing at the climbing club," Merlin said. "I don’t want to—”

“Don’t mention it,” said Arthur, cutting him off. “As long as that gobby mate of yours won’t be coming round.”

“Not much chance of that.” Merlin’s face darkened. “Seeing as how he’s dead and all.”

“Oh.” Bugger. In all the awkwardness, Arthur had forgotten the tragic circumstances that had led to Merlin’s homelessness. “I’m so sorry. Of course. Gwen did say that you had to move out of your flat because… but… I didn’t realise it was… I’m… For your loss, I mean. Sorry.”

“Yeah.” The ghost of a mirthless smile flitted across Merlin’s face and disappeared abruptly, like the sun going behind a cloud. “Me too.”

One blustery morning, a few days later, when the rain was coming down in oblique sheets that assaulted the windows so hard that they rattled, Arthur was just tugging on his gloves and scarf when Merlin joined him in the hallway and started to lace up his shoes. Still feeling guilty about his _faux pas_ concerning Merlin’s friend, Arthur decided to try to break the ice.

“So. Where are you off to?” he said. It was a bit lame, but you had to start somewhere.

“Zoology department,” said Merlin, pulling tight the bright yellow lace on his second eight-eyelet, black Doctor Martens boot, and then straightening to reach for his tattered-looking waterproof. “Just started a Ph.D there.”

“In that? You’ll get drenched.” Arthur frowned at the waterproof as he reached for his own reversible North Face quilted jacket, a recent purchase that had become indispensable in these unpredictable northern climes.

“You sound like my mother! Anyway, it’s all I’ve got, so it will have to do.”

“Look, there’s no point you catching your death of cold. I have an old one you can borrow. Hang on a minute.” Arthur opened the cupboard by the front door, an untidy space stacked with elderly boxes of jumbled climbing equipment and walking boots he had somehow never got round to offloading on the mountaineering club. He emerged, triumphant, with a bright red waterproof jacket emblazoned with the Pendragon Oil logo. “Here! Sorry about the naff logo, but at least it will keep you dry.”

“Thanks,” said Merlin. His face morphed into an intense, blazing grin. “That’s really kind of you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Arthur felt the colour rise in his cheeks, not quite knowing why. “Maybe we could walk together? I’m based in Botany – that’s where I’m doing my post-doc – I would guess that we’re both on the same campus, up at Avalon Buildings?”

It was about a half an hour’s brisk walk up to AB from the city centre, and Arthur normally liked to cycle, but in this weather the idea of getting splashed by indifferent vehicles seemed rather unappealing. Besides which, the gritting lorries had been out last night, because there had been warnings of snow, and he didn’t want to get Excalibur, his bicycle, covered in salt.

“I’d like that,” said Merlin, with a soft-eyed smile.

Feeling suddenly warm, Arthur put his hand on the door-knob.

“Come on then,” he said. “Let’s go and do some science.”

It had been Arthur’s arse that had first caught Merlin’s eye, all those months ago, before Will died and everything changed. Arthur’s magnificent, comely rump, outlined deliciously by his harness as he spidered his way up the climbing wall. Of course, he didn’t know who Arthur was at that point, only that he’d really, really like to find out what it would feel like to wrap his hand round that glorious arse and give it a good squeeze.

As he watched, gorgeous-bum bloke , keeping his centre of gravity close in to the wall, pushed up with one economical movement, stretching to reach the next hand-hold without pausing. He was a skilful climber, as well as being eminently grope-able.

Merlin tilted his head on one side for a better look, noting the top-of-the-range brand-new harness, and the comfortable-looking but expensive climbing shoes. The guy’s equipment put their serviceable but elderly borrowed kit, signed out from the university climbing club that morning, to shame.

Will was burbling on about something as usual.

“And then she told me she didn’t like blokes with dark hair," he was saying. "So I said I’d dye mine, I didn’t mind, and was she a natural blonde? For some reason she slapped me in the face and told me I was desperate, insensitive and sexist, and walked out.”

“Mmm!” said Merlin, gazing up at the view. The muscles in that pert, perfect, rotund bum flexed under the lycra, and the man they were attached to reached up to grab another handhold.

“Shame, though. I mean, she had a rack to die for.” Will double-checked the ATC belay device before clipping the carabiner into his belt and tugging all the rope lengths. He was a twat, but he was a careful one.

“You’re a pig sometimes.” Merlin absently fingered the figure-of-eight attaching the rope to his harness, and added a stopper-knot.

“You love me though. Ready?”

“Mmm.” Merlin looked up once more. That bottom really was perfect. Curved and yet solid-looking. He bet that it was firm to the touch, and strong too. Oh yes. The bum was a work of art.

Merlin patted himself mentally on the back for choosing to join the climbing club.

Today’s training exercise was to include a slight overhang, not too ambitious, but difficult and requiring excellent concentration. So Merlin tore his eyes away from the spectacle alongside him, and sidled closer to their chosen route. 

With Will belaying, Merlin made short work of the lower portion of the wall, and then worked his way steadily along the traverse. The next, more intricate part of the route involved an overhang and some challenging balance changes, which he handled without too much difficulty. Will watched him carefully, keeping the rope taut with his belaying device.

By the time it was Will’s turn to climb, the gorgeous, fit blond bloke was back down on _terra firma_ , belaying for his companion, a tall bloke with shaggy hair and a wispy ginger beard, whose long limbs were making short work of the climb they’d been tackling.

“Nice technique, mate,” said Merlin, making polite conversation. But the blond guy just rolled his eyes and kept his focus on his friend and his hands on the belay rope.

“Stop flirting with that nobby posh bastard, Merlin, you great big tart,” said Will, with characteristic tact. “Come and help me with this carabiner.”

“I’m not bloody flirting, Will, just being polite. Not that that’s a concept familiar to you.” Trying to hide the way Will’s words brought heat to his cheeks, Merlin frowned. “Here, you’ve got your harness in a pickle.”

“Hope you’re going to bloody concentrate when you belay me,” said Will, tugging at his straps to straighten them. “I’m not going to die because you’d like to shag that posh twat who’s got a pole up his frigging arse.”

“Shut the fuck up, Will.” Merlin could see said bloke’s shoulders tense and the beginnings of a scowl settle over his chiselled features, so he hurried to change the subject. “There, that should sort you out. Let me see your figure-of-eight?”

They spent another moment or two checking all the knots and protection, and then Will was ready to go.

“On belay?” he said.

“Belay on,” Merlin confirmed.

“Climbing.”

“Climb on.”

Will took quite a bit more time over the traverse. Merlin kept a tight brake on the rope while he was tackling a particularly stubborn section. As Will didn’t quite have Merlin’s reach, he was struggling, despite his upper body strength. Merlin could see he was beginning to lose his balance – and his cool.

“Straighten your arms, Will,” Merlin called. “Use your legs to take your weight, mate.”

“It’s all very well for you to say,” yelled Will, sounding frustrated. “My bloody hands are sweating.”

“Use some chalk.”

“I can’t! TAKE!” This command meant that Will wanted Merlin to ensure there was no slack on the rope. Merlin obeyed at once, tugging with his lead hand until the belaying device took up the slack. Will was tiring fast, Merlin knew, hanging on by his fingers and toes. As he watched, Will’s foot slipped off a hold, and he scrabbled to regain his balance, ending up swinging from one hand.

Merlin checked his belay position and gripped more tightly onto the rope.

“Falling!” Will yelled, as his fingers slid off the handhold, putting legs and arms out, slightly bent, in front of him to absorb the impact when he slammed into the wall. Cursing, he dangled for a bit while Merlin gently let out the slack to lower him to the ground.

And that’s when it happened. Something fell to the floor with a clink.

Instantly, blond bloke’s eyes swivelled accusingly towards them. “You idiot!” he yelled at Will, who was still abseiling down.

“What’s up, nobby? Got your knickers in a twist?”

“This facility has rules, you know. You do not climb with anything in your pockets! I’ll have you banned.” The guy had been pretty sensational to look at before, with his rough-hewn jaw and his messy blond locks, and he looked, if anything, even hotter when he was furious. His eyes narrowed, and he was poised, balanced, as if he was a predator waiting to pounce.

Resisting saying _you can pounce on me, anytime!_ Merlin coughed instead, to hide his momentary confusion.

“You’d better concentrate on your own belaying, mate,” he said, instead, and then winced at his own inarticulacy. Stupid! Criticism was guaranteed to get the guy with his hair-trigger temper riled even further.

Merlin tore his eyes away for one second to see what the bloke had been yelling at. On the floor was an innocent-looking carabiner, which no doubt had fallen down from a climber’s pocket or belt. Merlin knelt to pick it up, and turned it over in his hand. “Anyway, this isn’t one of W—”

“You inexperienced climbers think it’s just a joke, don’t you,” yelled the posh bloke. “Who the hell let you loose in here?”

“Ahem?” Shaggy-hair, half way up the wall, interrupted his ranting mate with a polite cough. “Climbing?”

“Sorry, Leon, you’re going to have to come down. I need to report these two irresponsible, incompetent imbeciles to—”

“I’ll have you know that we’re perfectly competent,” Merlin interrupted, stung by the accusation of incompetence, and feeling heat spread to his cheeks, “just because we can’t afford our own kit, doesn’t mean that we’re not—”

“Responsible climbers always use their own equipment,” shouted Arthur. “You bumbling, under-equipped, scruffy nitwit! Don’t you know who I am?”

“Why should I?” said Merlin, “I know enough about you. I know you’re an arrogant, pompous, irritating prat with a gorgeous arse. Anyway, didn’t you hear me? I said this isn’t one of Will’s carabiners. It’s brand new, and it’s embossed with the letter P.”

Again the polite-sounding cough.

“Ahem. Ah. Arthur? I rather think that it was me who dropped the carabiner,” said Leon, still holding on by his hands and his toes. “Sorry about that that. Erm – if we’re going to have an argument, could you possibly belay me down, please, old chap? It’s just that my fingertips are getting a little sore.”

“Ha!” Merlin raised a triumphant finger. “Now I do know your name, and I’m going to report you both to the climbing club captain.”

“Aha!” said Arthur. “That’s where you’ll have trouble. Because, you see, I am the climbing club captain. I’ve been training to climb practically since birth.”

“And how long have you had that stick up your arse?” Merlin shook his head in mock-sadness. 

“Didn’t you just say it was gorgeous?”

“You must have imagined it.”

The surf crashed and murmured on the golden strand. Far out to sea a school of dolphins played, the sun raising glowing sparks on the rippling ocean. Arthur clutched the hand of his companion and turned. The bright eyes that met his gaze, fathomless blue like the ocean, studded with gold from the sun and white from the scudding clouds, held affection and longing. Plump lips parted as if to speak…

Arthur awoke to a rude, harsh banging sound.

“Come on lazybones,” yelled Merlin through the door. “Let’s be having you!”

Still hazy and drowsy from his blissful dream, Arthur groaned.

“Fuck off!” he yelled, desperately clutching at the last, lingering threads of it. Who had he been about to kiss? It can’t have been Gwen, her eyes were dark brown. 

“There’s no need to be such a prat about it!”

It was no good. The dream had gone, and with it Arthur’s good temper.

It had seemed like a good idea, at first, having Merlin wake him up in the mornings, given that he was always up early. But sometimes, on grim, grey Mondays in the depths of the winter, when the dawn light had not yet started to filter in through his curtains, and the wind battered the windows in determined gusts that whistled and echoed through the Victorian chimney-flue... 

“Do you have to be so bloody cheerful?”

“Yes, it’s the only way to tell Mother Nature that she’s not winning!” said Merlin, flicking on the light switch just inside Arthur’s door so that the room was flooded with sixty unwelcome watts.

Wincing, Arthur plumped up his pillow and placed it over his own head.

“I’m not interested,” he said, his voice muffled by the pillow.

“Suit yourself, mate, but there are mushrooms on toast in the kitchen, and baked beans… they’ll go cold if you don’t come out.”

“Is there tea?” Arthur lifted the pillow a fraction, until with one eye he could see Merlin’s tousled head poking round the door.

“Yes, Your Highness!” Merlin rolled his eyes, as if Arthur was being unreasonable, which was most unfair. “There is indeed tea.”

Arthur let one toe out from under the duvet.

“It’s cold.” He sounded sulky, even to his own ears.

“Yes, and your tea is hot,” said Merlin. “Although it won’t be for long, especially if I drink it all…”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Merlin mimed bringing a mug slowly to his lips. “Mmm! Lovely, hot tea!” He made a loud slurping noise.

“Bastard.”

“It’ll be in the kitchen. As will I, for the next ten minutes.”

“Cornflakes?”

“Yes, yes, I got cornflakes yesterday, I know Mr Fusspot the cereal monogomist will tolerate nothing else.”

“Fine.”

It was a bit of a shock, the first time Merlin brought a man back to the flat. It wasn’t the fact that Merlin was gay – Arthur wasn’t remotely shocked by that, given the way that he’d acted the first time they met. It was just that Merlin had such an air of cheerful innocence about him, it seemed odd, at first, to imagine him being in any way sexual.

It was approaching midnight, and Gwen had gone home, saying that she had an early start the next day. Arthur was in the kitchen, despite the late hour, sipping hot tea from his Arsenal mug and sorting out some old but serviceable climbing equipment that he’d promised to pass on to the club. He’d just closed the lid on a box and was about to hump it out to the cupboard by the front door, when said door burst open, accompanied by a deep-voiced, raucous cackling.

A couple of loud stumbling noises later, a grunt and a muffled curse, and Merlin and another man erupted into the kitchen in an exuberant flurry of glitter, dishevelled leather vests, shirtlessness and vertical hair.

“Whoops!” Merlin took one look at the vision of organised domesticity in the kitchen. “Come on gorgeous! Let’s go to my room.” He reversed out again, tugging the bloke behind him, and, by the sound of it, staggering back to his room, bumping every wall en route, and then pausing for a second before the thuds and staggering noises moved on. Arthur could well imagine that Merlin was being thrust up the wall for a sneaky snog every five seconds. The corridor wasn’t that long, but it took them a good five minutes before Merlin’s bedroom door closed.

Arthur wasn’t surprised, when he peeped out of the kitchen, to find random items of clothing scattered across the dark-brown wood of the hall floor. He frowned, kicking them aside on his walk to the passageway, and thought dark thoughts about flighty flat-mates and their slovenly habits.

The racket that then broke out in Merlin’s room, and continued intermittently for the next three hours or so, spectacularly put paid to any speculation that Merlin could be asexual. Eventually Arthur resorted to earphones and an extremely unsatisfying wank, and fell asleep to suffer chaotic dreams in which he tossed the random bloke Merlin had brought back out on his ear, punched him, and, weirdly, went back to Merlin’s room to tuck him in afterwards.

All in all, Arthur felt that, given his disturbed night, he could be forgiven for being low on patience and fellow-feeling when Merlin woke him at the usual time the next morning.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Merlin called through the door as if nothing had happened. “Let’s be having you, lazy daisy!”

“Fuck off,” said Arthur, injecting rather more venom than usual into his speech, and throwing his pillow at the door for good measure. Tonight he was bloody well going to have Gwen round, and they’d shag like bunnies, all fucking night long, to see how Merlin bloody well liked it.

Merlin’s head peeped around the door. He looked as fresh as someone who’d had eight solid hours of sleep, not like someone who’d stayed out till midnight and shagged till three. He had no bloody right to look and sound so chipper.

“I said fuck off!” Arthur roared, looking round for something else to throw, and regretting the loss of his pillow. “And don’t give me that hurt, innocent expression, Mr Shagathon! Jeez, were you and whatsisface doing a sponsored fuck or something?”

“I have needs!” said Merlin, indignantly. “I’m not a monk! Look, there’s tea on the kitchen table. I’m off out.”

“Taking your new boyfriend home, no doubt,” sneered Arthur, feeling his mouth curve into a sneer. He couldn’t help it. He felt like hitting someone, preferably Merlin’s new boyfriend, and he didn’t know or want to think about why.

“What? No, he’s not my boyfriend! He left ages ago. It was just a bit of fun.”

“Fucking hell, Merlin, was that a one night stand? It sounded like world war bloody three in there!” Arthur propped himself up on one elbow. “I hope you were being careful. And bloody well clean up all the clothes in the corridor.”

“Jeez! Listen to you! Lighten up a bit?” said Merlin, rolling his eyes. “You’re not my mum, you know. It’s a free country and I have twenty-one years of small-town virginity to make up for!”

“At least compensate me for my ruined sleep by bringing me my tea?” said Arthur, his voice coming out as more of a growl than he’d intended.

“What? I’m not your slave, Arthur,” Merlin retorted, his voice rising. “Fuck you.”

As he disappeared, the door closed quietly behind him, followed a few minutes later by a gentle click that indicated the flat was empty.

The fact that Arthur couldn’t work out why he suddenly felt like he was in the wrong, even though he was the one who’d been kept up all night, didn’t do anything to improve his temper.

As flat mates went, Arthur must have ranked among the very worst.

“Ignorant,” said Merlin, out loud, before taking another great gasp of air. “Great.” Gulp. “Big.” Gulp. “Prat.” And then his lungs teamed up with the vestiges of his hangover, begging him to stop trying to speak, so he concentrated on lengthening his stride and avoiding stepping on any slippery strands of seaweed.

Merlin liked to run along the wide, endless sandy beach. It was one of the attractions of coming to study for his Ph.D here, in this dank, northern outpost of Albion, with its oil-derricks and dour, grey-hewn granite architecture. That and the fact that his mentor, Gaius, was here. Gaius was probably the only person who could help Merlin to develop some of his more unique and esoteric skills as well as guide him in mainstream zoology.

The morning had dawned blustery and grim. Every few seconds, the wind raised hissing clouds of foam from the breaking surf. Showers blurred the wide horizon. As he ran, the tide was beating a gradual retreat. The lonely cries of wheeling seabirds punctuated the constant murmur and suck of the wind and waves . His fingertips and ears tingled from the cold, his face raw and eyes watering as the relentless wind whipped into his hair and through his thin running clothes. On days like this, he felt alive, blood thrumming close to the surface of his skin, sweat drying on his brow, feet slapping on the wet sand.

Here, in this deserted place, he could practise using what Gaius called his hypersenses, but Merlin still thought of as magic. The weather had driven all but the hardiest of folk from the beach. Tentatively, at first, he let the tight locks on his mind loosen, so that his extrasensory awareness expanded to take in his immediate surroundings. Normally, in the heart of the city, he dared not do this. The incessant deafening thoughts of the heaving, bustling termite-heap of Camelot City would clamour through his head, rendering him unable to think. Gaius had taught him how to block them all out. But out here, in this remote and inhospitable place, he could let his thoughts roam freely.

Reaching out with his mind, he sensed the tiny single-minded consciousnesses of the sea-birds: hunger, need, the feel of wind in feathers, uplift, downdraft, momentum. Widening his range, far out at sea, a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins played in the swell. If he squinted he could even see them without magic, tiny, black blobs in the distance. Telescoping his magic, he reached forever further, letting his mind slide into one of theirs, feeling how his sleek body slipped through the water, sensing the ripples sloughing off his back, the exaltation of erupting into the air, returning with a crash to roll around into a passing wave.

Laughing with sheer exhilaration, Merlin returned to himself, speeding the rhythm of his pumping limbs. With his mind unguarded, he became aware of another spark of consciousness making steady progress along the beach, intent and focussed, diamond bright and dazzling. A runner was gaining on him, catching up quickly, and his aura was unmistakeable. Merlin grinned, inexplicably happy, and pounded the compacting sand hard, leaving damp footprints where tiny foot-shaped puddles welled up for a moment through the pores between the grains before draining away into the underlying groundwater.

“Merlin!” shouted the other runner. “Merlin, wait!”

Arthur charged along the sand behind him, still closing the distance between them despite Merlin’s turn of speed. With his mind’s eye, Merlin could see him, sweat-damp hair clinging to his creased brow, jaw clenched, limbs perfectly balanced and coordinated. Arthur epitomised athleticism, like an old-fashioned hero.

Sometimes it overwhelmed Merlin, sharing a flat with such unabashed masculine physicality, it drove his hormones completely crazy. Little wonder he had to go out and seek some sort of solace in the gay gorgeousness that was to be found in the Camelot Club on a Friday Night.

Slowing to a jog, Merlin sighed and pulled in his roving mind, locking away his hypersenses even as he let Arthur catch up. He hated pulling himself in like that – it felt like putting on ear defenders or filtering out all colour from the world – not to mention that it was disorientating, and made him feel dizzy. But he hadn’t yet mastered filtering out the noise from the signals he wanted to hear, and it was dangerous to be so open when other people were near.

“I may,” panted Arthur, reaching him and falling into step, “have over-reacted slightly.”

“What’s the matter, your highness? Jealous?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin. But you did keep me awake all night. In my own flat”

“Is that an apology?”

“It might be. If it’s reciprocated.”

“Fine.” Merlin sighed, and slowed to a standstill, leaning forward to put his hands on his knees. “Fine, fine. All right. I’m sorry. I really am. I didn't think. It was thoughtless of me. I’ll be quieter next time. But I’m not… I can’t not…” He waved his hands around as if to say “shag” without saying “shag”. “All right? ”

Arthur’s lower lip protruded for a second before he nodded and punched Merlin on the arm.

“Okay.”

As flat mates went, Arthur was all right, really. 

“What’s got into you, Arthur?” Uther frowned, even as he chewed on a large forkful of Yorkshire pudding. “Where has this idealistic, hippy nonsense come from?”

They were sitting in the private room at the back of a local gastro-pub, which had been expensively refurbished to resemble a rustic French Bistro. Arthur had chosen the locale himself. Rather than approach the dragons, as he mentally referred to his family, in their own lairs, he wanted to meet on neutral territory. Plus, it needed to be somewhere private in case there was a scene. You could never rule out a scene. Not when Morgana and Uther were involved. And when the door opened to admit not only Morgana but also an intent-looking Morgause, Arthur groaned. If anyone was guaranteed to cause a scene, it was Morgause.

It should have been idyllic. The dark wood-panels were leavened by large windows, bright daylight streaming in past the warm daffodils in the window-box. A merry fire hissed and crackled in the grate, and inviting smells drifted in from the kitchen. But the clatter and hum of conversation and cutlery from a neighbouring room couldn’t really disguise the tension at their table.

“It’s not nonsense, Father. I think I’m really making progress,” said Arthur, ladling another spoonful of buttered cabbage onto his generous plateful of roast beef.

He didn’t know why he’d been looking forward to lunch with his family. It had been meant to lead to some sort of reconciliation between Father and Morgana, and maybe an acknowledgment that Arthur’s research could be important. Perhaps some naive part of him had hoped, in some kind of screwed-up optimistic sort of way, that his father would approve. And he knew this research had merit, he knew it could work, if only Father didn’t have such a deep-seated suspicion of people who cared about environmental issues. Things would be easier between them if Arthur could just let it slide, and pay lip service to Uther’s opinions, but he felt it was his duty to be honest.

“Environmental conservation is not about hippy nonsense, Father,” said Morgana as she took a tiny forkful of nut-loaf and glared at it accusingly. “It’s a common sense acknowledgment that we share Earth with other species.”

“It’s time the patriarchy was silenced,” added Morgause. “Male politics has laid waste to this planet’s bounty.” She was about to embark upon one of her long sermons, Arthur could tell.

At the broad window, he could see a pair of greenfinches flitting in and out of the vine that trailed up the wall outside. He would have to tell Merlin about that, later. Merlin loved birds. Sometimes, when they were out running, they’d stop at a remote spot and try to point out the species that they knew. Although Arthur was no slouch at identifying birds, some of the seabirds looked a bit samey same to him, whereas Merlin could distinguish the kittiwakes and the terns from the gulls. The thought of Merlin made him smile.

The room went silent. Morgana, Morgause, and Uther were staring at him.

“I’m glad we have your full attention, little brother,” said Morgana in biting tones.

Toying with his knife, Arthur sighed. It had been a mistake to let his guard slip. He wondered what Merlin would make of his fractured family.

“As for you, dear Father,” Morgana went on, “You, your vile industry, and its arrogant plundering of the world’s resources, you… you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. You must be made to stop.”

“Morgana!” said Uther, frowning at his rack of lamb. “I live in the real world, child, which is why I will not sit here and listen to your ridiculous, ill-thought-out, self-indulgent—”

“Father,” interrupted Arthur, because he did agree with Morgana up to a point, although not with her way of turning every ideological point into an opportunity to hurl personal abuse, a habit she seemed to have learned from Morgause, “Father I think we should at least hear what Morgana has to say. It would be reckless and irresponsible to peg Pendragon Oil’s future to out-of-date fossil-fuel burning without any thought for the potential future consequences for the world’s climate.” He mopped his mouth with his napkin and took a long swig of his wine. “Bio-engineering really has come on, you know. And I’m on the edge of something big. We have isolated a species of alga that can photosynthesise effectively at extreme low temperatures. My lab testing indicates that it’s still able to photosynthesise after months of dormancy in the darkness. We’ve replicated Antarctic conditions in the lab. I just need to confirm the results with field-testing.”

“You’re wasting your time, Arthur,” said Uther. Adopting the closed, mulish expression that Arthur knew meant that he’d made up his mind, he added, “You should be taking the helm at Pendragon Oil’s Exploration and Production department, not pursuing these ridiculous blue-skies research projects.”

“It's not a waste of time, Father,” Arthur protested. “With a year in Antarctica I can test the viability of this organism in real time. Just think, Father. We could turn the Antarctic green. It could be a green lung, taking all those greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and replacing them with oxygen.”

“The whole premise is ridiculous, Arthur,” said Morgause. “I’ve got two words for you. _Planetary albedo._ Darkening the Antarctic will decrease the amount of sunlight reflected away. It’ll accelerate warming, not slow it down. You’re just like your father; you men never think through consequences.”

“And not only that – what about the organisms that already live there?” said Morgana, her eyes flashing a dangerous, livid green. “You bloody men are all as bad as each other – the Antarctic is a wilderness! It’s unique, and must be protected. We simply must find an alternative for fossil-fuel burning before it’s too late!”

It was a reprise of a much-debated point, one that had made Morgana move out of his flat in the first place.

“Oh, and I suppose you propose using nuclear power instead of fossil-fuel burning, do you, Morgana?” growled Arthur. “Good luck with finding somewhere to store all the waste—”

“As it happens,” said Morgana, rising and fixing them both with a deadly stare, “I have plans. And they don’t involve enhancing the ambitions of pathetic, pompous, fat-cat climate-change deniers like you, Father—”

“How dare you—” Uther was already on his feet, his face livid, the vein in his temple standing out as he roared. “Is this the gratitude I get for raising you as my own—”

“So I have to show gratitude for every breath I draw?” Morgana shrieked back, in tones so loud that Arthur winced. “Even when you are part of a machine that is wantonly destroying our planet—”

Arthur tried to calm things down.

“Morgana, look. I’m sure we can resolve this. Can we just talk—”

Go to hell!” Morgana shrieked. “I don’t know why I thought I could talk to you. Bloody arrogant, stubborn, privileged, spoilt… I hate you both!”

“Morgana, I just wanted to—”

“Don’t try to tell me to calm down, Arthur, you patronising arsehole. You climate-change mitigation types are just apologists for the whole fucking oil industry. Don’t you understand? The clock is ticking! Humans have to change their behaviour, and we have to do it fast. And I have found another way. Not licking the arses of the global corporations like you, Arthur. You make me sick, both of you, you’re just as bad as each other. Morgause and I have found an alternative. You will hear about it in due course." Slamming her glass down onto the table with a dissonant clang that made them both wince, she stalked out of the room, turning at the door. "Come, Morgause!”

With a triumphant look, Morgause dropped her napkin onto the table and followed Morgana out of the room.

“Morgana!” yelled Uther. “Come back here at once or I will cut off your allowance!”

The door opened again. Morgana’s face was calm now, and all the more menacing for it.

“You can take your dirty money, Father,” she said, in a low voice laden with venom, “and shove it up your arse.”

When the door slammed shut behind her, Arthur didn’t flinch, but it was a close call.

“Arthur.” Uther’s heavy hand covered his. “At least tell me that I have one child who understands where the future of this family lies. I don’t approve of your research, as you know. But maybe it would be an appropriate cover for the other project that we discussed. I want you to prepare to spend a year in Antarctica. Maybe more. Whatever it takes. You may pursue your… research interests in this time, but you know what you have to do.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I hear you have a new flatmate. Merlin Ambrose.”

“Yeah, why?” Puzzled, Arthur looked up at Uther, frowning.

“Get close to him,” said Uther, with a nod. “He has information that can help us.” Dabbing at his mouth with his napkin, he waved at a passing waiter for the bill. “See what you can find out about his father, Balinor Ambrose, and his clandestine expedition to Antarctica in 1986. I think this Ambrose may have information that can aid your quest. You know what to do when you succeed. And then, maybe we can talk about your future position in Pendragon Oil.”

“Yes, Father.” Arthur stared at the congealing remnants of what had originally looked like a very fine lunch, and found that he’d lost his appetite.

 

It had been a shock, the first time. On later occasions it became less so, but to Arthur’s annoyance, his resentment only grew with every passing stranger who whirled through the flat, took what he wanted from Merlin, and buggered off without even having the courtesy of staying for a coffee.

Arthur would never treat Mer— anyone like that.

But it seemed that was the way that Merlin wanted it.

One late, pale grey Saturday morning, Arthur sat munching his cornflakes and reading _The Scotsman_. He leafed through an article about a large animal rights group demonstration, which was protesting against new legislation. The new laws would allow animal testing for the purposes of energy generation, whatever that might mean. Idly, he wondered what Merlin would think about that.

And that’s when when Merlin himself finally emerged, yawning, and sank down opposite Arthur, hands gripped around a steaming mug of tea.

“Good night?” said Arthur, fighting down his customary disapproval.

“Yeah, mate,” said Merlin, his voice a bare whisper. “Epic. You?”

“It was fine. Gwen and I had an early night.” Gwen already left for her early shift at the blind school.

“Sounds riveting.” Merlin huffed out a laugh which turned into a hacking cough. 

“Well, it may not be that exciting, but at least I can actually speak this morning, which is more than I can say for you.”

“You don’t have any right to judge me,” said Merlin, taking a swig of his tea with a wince.

“Not judging,” lied Arthur. He knew he didn’t have that right, but he also knew that Merlin’s hedonistic lifestyle was fraught with risks. “I just… have you ever had sex with someone you actually know, Merlin? You should try it some time. You might find that you like it.”

“All right, Mr Boring. Maybe I will, at that.” When Merlin took another gulp of his tea, Arthur noticed how his hand trembled and his nostrils flared.

 “Are you okay, Merlin?” Not quite understanding where the impulse came from, Arthur reached out to touch Merlin’s free hand.

They locked gazes.

“Fine,” Merlin croaked out, the tell-tale brightness in his eyes turning to a glassy shimmer.

“Did that bastard hurt you?” Arthur growled.

“No.” Merlin swallowed.

Arthur let out the breath he didn’t realise he had been holding.

“It’s just, I… since Will died, I’ve…” Merlin looked down at his mug and shrugged. “And sometimes I feel so numb. But when I’m with them, I can feel. I can just be. Don’t you see? But then, when they’ve gone… it crashes down on me. You know?”

When he looked up again, gaunt-faced, Arthur nodded.

“I suppose I do. But you can’t carry on like this forever, Merlin. It will catch up with you sooner or later.”

“All right, mum!” said Merlin with the ghost of a smile.

For lack of anything better to do, Arthur clapped him on the shoulder and stood up, gathering their mugs together and taking two steps to rinse them out in the sink.

“Arthur?”

Arthur turned.

“Thanks.”

“It’s no good looking at me like that.” Merlin knew, when Gaius tilted his eyebrow in a certain way, that it meant he was doing everything wrong. He slammed the book closed in frustration and buried his hands in his hair. “Sometimes I think I’ll never work out what this is. This…” he swept his hand in an arc, indicating the arcana that littered Gaius’s study. “What’s it all for, Gaius? Tell me that. Why am I bothering? What am I meant to do?”

Gaius’s study may have been located in the Zoology department, but living creatures were not the only things encompassed by his wide-ranging research. The eclectic contents of his room reflected his diverse interests. On prominent display was evidence of Gaius’s long and distinguished career into the study of flight. Entomological paraphernalia occupied an entire wall, books cascading off the shelves onto the long, cluttered desk. Along another wall, a display case housed stuffed modern-day bird specimens, while the replica of a fossilised flying reptilian dangled over their heads.

But the tutored eye could also pick out other, more esoteric objects, more hidden from view but arguably more important. Under Gaius’s desk, Merlin happened to know, lurked a selection of wooden divining rods. A magnificent pale-white opal sphere, roughly the size of a football, sat in plain view. Its surface, flecked with darts of rainbow colours, shimmered as one moved around it.

Gaius’s more fanciful visitors whispered that this object sometimes glowed from within, as if lit by some restless inner awareness. Most people scoffed at their wild imaginings, but Merlin did not.

The scent that emanated from Gaius’s dark-green leather-lined writing desk spoke of wood polish and expensive pipe tobacco. Merlin had never seen him smoke in this room, or polish the mahogany; it was as though the room echoed the history of previous occupants, a reassuring unchanged oasis of order, thought and enquiry in an increasingly chaotic world.

Under the window, a secret display case, normally hidden from view, housed a collection of rare fossil eggs. Few of Gaius’s contemporaries and even fewer of his pupils had seen them. Only one, in fact. And that one pupil was currently gazing at one of these eggs, an object of such a monstrous size that it dwarfed Merlin’s hands. Cold to the touch, it sat there, unchanging, like a great, accusing eye.

“Destiny is an elusive thing, Merlin. And it’s natural for you to feel frustrated, my boy,” said Gaius, reaching across the table to rescue the egg, and drawing himself to his feet to place it back into a precise position. “I know you are finding it difficult to create an inner focus at the moment, and I know that the dragon inside this egg is a fossil, but it’s still a priceless object!”

“I’m sorry, Gaius.” Feeling only a little bit guilty, Merlin stood and gazed out of the window at the sea, far in the distance, the smooth glass cool on his forehead. “I just… I want to understand, but it’s like it’s all locked away inside me. It’s like there’s… there’s something missing, and I don’t know where to look for it.”

A pair of pigeons bobbing and bowing at one another on the balcony outside Gaius’s third-floor study window, suddenly spooked by something, flew off with a surprised flutter. Merlin smiled, despite himself. People underestimated pigeons, thought of them as flying vermin, but they were intelligent, many of them capable of migrating over large distances. They weren’t his favourite birds, but he did enjoy their antics and admire their opportunistic ability to thrive in the widest range of environments.

“It is bound to take time for you to understand your capabilities, Merlin.” Gaius settled back into his chair. “You have remarkable talents. It was never going to be obvious where they fit into the general scheme of things. And you are understandably unsettled at the moment.”

Merlin sighed his agreement, settling down in front of his mentor with his hands pressed together in a worried arch. “Unsettled? Slight understatement.” Since Will died, Merlin’s concentration had been scattered to the four winds.

Just thinking about Will made his eyes blur and his throat tighten.

“I’m sorry, my boy.” Gaius reached forward to grasp both Merlin’s hands in his own. “I know you miss him.”

Merlin nodded. “Thanks,” he said.

“I’d love to say that you can take all the time you need to grieve, Merlin.” Gaius’s eyes bored into his. “But just be careful that you don’t do anything stupid. Destiny has a nasty habit of happening to people before they’re ready. And I have a nasty feeling that it’s lining you up for something big. Someone with your inherent abilities sometimes doesn’t always have the luxury of time. You need to get your powers under control before you are called upon to use them.”

“Like what happened to my father, you mean?” said Merlin.

“I see that you are beginning to understand.”

Taking a long, shaky breath, Merlin closed his eyes, struggling for a moment to straighten out his confused thoughts, which whirled and fluttered around him like wheeling flocks of mocking gulls. Painful memories of Will jostled with a sudden, acute sense of loss, mingled with moments from his most recent encounter in a nightclub. A kaleidoscope of birds and dragons and dolphins, of clouds scudding across a lurid sunset, flashing blades, clamouring voices, sent furious blue lights whirling and howling across his senses. And Arthur. Why, he did not know, but suddenly Arthur’s laughing face flitted across his field of view and was swept up into the confusing, unruly whole.

As Gaius had taught him, he imagined his thoughts as physical strands of twine. Slowly, he untangled them. Ordering the threads into tightly wound balls, he pulled them into the centre of his consciousness, bright beads of wayward light that fused into a single, coherent whole. Sentient. Aware. Balanced.

After a moment, he opened his eyes.

“Ready?” said Gaius.

“Ready,” Merlin replied firmly.

Cautiously, he extended a slim, friendly strand of consciousness towards the pigeons, who had settled back onto the roof. This was the easy part, the sharing of awareness and mutual respect between two creatures.

Bridging the gap between awareness and intent – that was the difficult bit. Merlin had never yet mastered it.

Closing his eyes, Merlin merged his mind with the pigeon’s, felt the tips of its wings spread away, felt its body bobbing and swayed in step with its mate’s, the dazzling sunlight splitting into rainbows across his vision.

“That’s it,” said Gaius, his voice sounding distant. “Now just one more step.”

“Come fly with me,” thought Merlin. “Let me fly with you.” He tried to flex his wings.

Excruciating pain immediately gripped his entire being, flinging his scattered thoughts away from the pigeon without warning. Abruptly he returned to himself, and the pigeon flapped off with an indignant sound, leaving Merlin with a searing headache and a sense of violation.

“I can’t do it,” Merlin said, frustrated. “It’s not right. This can’t be the right way, Gaius.”

“Can you tell me what you feel is wrong?”

“It all feels wrong. My magic hates what we are doing. It feels wrong to be coercing a living creature, wrong to be sneaking up on it like that. When I try to do it, I… it feels like this vast black pit is yawning in front of me. It’s not the way, Gaius.”

Gaius sighed. “All right, my boy.” He rubbed at his face, a strand of grey hair falling down across his eyes.

“But the druids… my destiny…” Merlin hated to be a disappointment to so many people.

“The druids will have to wait. They foretell that you will come into your magic when your soul meets its destiny. Clearly that hasn’t happened yet. Let’s see if we can find anything else. I just wish your father could have left a bit more information before he… ”

Struggling painfully to his feet, Gaius hobbled over to the bookshelf and stared at it, as if willing it to release its secrets.

Since that first occasion when Arthur had caught up with him on the beach, Merlin often found himself accompanied when he went out running – so much so that it seemed almost lonely on those rare days when Arthur had an early start at the lab, or when Gwen stayed over at the weekend. Overall, Arthur was probably the better athlete of the two, and had a mean turn of speed over short distances. But Merlin was light, and had excellent stamina; Arthur’s extra bulk punished him on those occasions when they ventured inland to run over the hills that surrounded the bay.

This morning, when Merlin knocked gently on Arthur’s door, he was greeted at first by an ominous silence.

“Arthur?” he called out, after knocking for a little longer. “Fancy a run?”

But it was Gwen’s face that appeared at the door.

“I’d give him a moment, if I were you.” A mischievous dimple appeared in her cheek, as she opened the door a little wider. “He seems to be even more of a Mr Grumpypants than usual.”

Merlin could just about make out a huddled figure under the bedclothes in the dim light that filtered through the bedroom curtains.

“I resent that remark!” said a muffled voice, and the lump of bed linen began to struggle.

“Look out,” said Merlin, softly, recognising the signs. “Someone’s waking up.”

Gwen turned her head, and then, as if prompted by some uncanny instinct, ducked just as an accurately hurled pillow hurtled across the room. It cannoned through the open door into Merlin’s chest, instead, where he caught it.

“I see what you mean,” he said, smiling. “He’s not exactly sweetness and light in the mornings, is he?”

“No!” She laughed, her face softening as she looked back at the cursing, bedraggled figure. “It’s like he’s got his own personal thundercloud!” From her expression she deemed this to be terribly sweet.

Merlin rolled his eyes. “Well, there seems little point wasting his cup of tea after I’ve gone to the trouble of making it for him. Would you like to drink it on his behalf?” He offered her his arm.

“Why thank you, Merlin, I rather think that I might.” Taking the arm he offered, she walked with him into the kitchen.

Forlorn yells of “That’s my tea!” and “Hands off my Arsenal mug!” issued through the door.

“Here,” he said, handing a mug and holding out a chair for her. “Haven’t seen you for ages. How’s your research going?”

"Rubbish." She pulled her face into a grimace. "I’ve totally lost interest recently. Why on Earth did I ever think that climate change was interesting?”

“Oh, now, come on, Gwen! You’re the most diligent person I know!”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Yes you are." He eyed her slyly. "You got the Little Miss Keen award on our Cornwall field trip, you can’t fool me. I was there. I remember.”

“I know, I know. Do you remember old Professor Monmouth?”

“Oh my God, yes.” Merlin grinned. “Who could forget his speech about ostracod penises?”

Gwen, who was in the middle of a long guzzle of tea, put her mug down and snorted.

“What? I’d forgotten about that! Oh my God! I can’t believe you just mentioned it! I nearly spat out my tea!” Swallowing, she started to laugh. “I was so humiliated—”

Laughing with her, Merlin carried on.

“I’ll never forget your comment,” he said, feeling the mirth bubbling up in his throat like champagne. “Never! There we were on some godforsaken beach somewhere, the wind howling – was it Tintagel? It might have been Tintagel. And he told us—”

“I know! About the oldest known fossil penis!”

“—The oldest known fossil penis!” Merlin could feel tears in his eyes, he was laughing so much. “Your face was a picture, you looked so earnest! Oh, Gwen! I nearly died laughing!”

“I just wanted to fall down a big hole!” Gwen, similarly affected, dabbed at her eyes. “God! He was such a perv as well!”

“‘The oldest known fossil penis is a 100 million year old hydraulic ostracod penis,’ says old Prof,” Merlin added, putting on a pompous voice that was meant to sound like Professor Monmouth. “And then you pipe up, all girly keen and all, saying—”

“But surely only the hard parts get preserved?” they both added the punchline in unison, eyes brimming and mouths wide.

The kitchen door of Arthur’s flat had a habit of sticking closed, so that when people came in and out they had to push hard on it to get it open – and the door-stopper had broken off, so that the door handle bashed against the wall every time. Which was why, when Arthur burst into the room, he did so with a great bang that made them both jump.

“What’s so funny?” Arthur frowned at them from his vantage point in the doorway.

“Good morning, sunshine,” said Merlin.

“That’s my mug!” said Arthur, in outraged tones, pointing at his half-full Arsenal mug, which Gwen was still cradling between her hands. “Where’s my tea?”

“Sadly the tea-fairy is on strike this morning,” said Merlin, locking eyes with Gwen. They both started laughing again while Arthur stalked across to the sink to fill the kettle, his shoulders in a tense, indignant line, and his arse, God, Merlin still couldn’t help looking at that arse, flexing under those too-tight jeans.

“Arthur, Merlin spoils you,” said Gwen, when they’d calmed down a bit and Arthur had sat down.

Despite his bluster, Arthur had made three cups of tea, and they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, looking at different sections of _The Scotsman_ ’s Saturday edition.

“Looks like they’re going to pass new legislation to allow Antarctic exploration for hydrocarbons,” said Arthur.

“That’s terrible!” Horrified, Merlin craned his neck to look at the article. “Can I see?”

“Father will be thrilled.” With a sigh, Arthur passed over the main part of the paper.

“It seems ridiculous.” Gwen pointed a another article on the same page, where the headline read _Evidence Links Latest Floods to Climate Change_. Thousands presumed dead. “Surely we need to stop burning fossil fuels.”

“Yeah. Well, we need to work on a solution, at any rate.” Muttering darkly about planetary albedo, Arthur buried his head into the sports fixtures, and Merlin felt it safe to return to the original topic of conversation.

“So. Gwen,” he said, still curious. “You’re normally really fired up about your research. What happened?”

Biting her lip, she gazed at a point in the ceiling just above his head for a second before meeting his eyes.

“I know. I still am, really, I know it’s important. It’s just that point-counting forams is soul-destroying, that’s all. Hour after hour, staring down a microscope, meticulously sorting through specimens with a tiny paint brush. Sometimes it just gets to me and I can’t even bring myself to go into the lab. And then there are the kids at the blind school. They’re amazing, Merlin! Can you imagine not being able to see? I can, a bit, because I spent some time blindfolded when I started volunteering there. Lance guided me around for a whole day. It was so hard, Merlin, but he was incredibly kind.”

Her face positively glowed when she talked about the blind school. Merlin wondered why he’d never noticed it before.

“And the kids! I can’t even begin to tell you how much I enjoy working with them. It seems so much more real than my research, somehow. Sometimes I just wonder if I’m doing the wrong thing?”

“Bloody Pellegrini.” Snorting, Arthur pointed at the newspaper. “Talking through his arse, as usual.” Looking up, he noticed them both frowning at him. “What? Did I miss something?”

“Not really,” said Gwen. “Nothing you haven’t heard a million times before. Enough about my existential woes. How about you, Merlin? How’s your research going?”

Merlin felt the familiar surge of mingled excitement and frustration that always bubbled up under his skin when he thought about his research.

“It’s going okay, in one way,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “My Icelandic data on Arctic Tern migrations is really interesting, and I’m still hoping that NERC funds my research proposal to tag emperor penguins next Antarctic summer.”

“That’s great, Merlin!” she said, looking genuinely delighted. “Oh my God! That would be so amazing! You’ve always wanted to go to Antarctica!”

“Yeah. Following my father’s footsteps and all that! But also, well, everything about the Antarctic excites me, Gwen.” He could feel his colour rising as he talked. “It’s the world’s last great wilderness, and it’s such a critical habitat – not to mention its importance for global climate – I can’t wait to really see it for myself, to feel like I’m making a difference, somehow.”

“It’s an amazing place,” said Arthur, softly. Merlin hadn’t realised he’d been listening.

“But what about the other thing?” She put on a dramatic voice. “The search for the lost species.”

Fingering his nearly-empty mug, Merlin bit his lip.

“The dragons. Yeah, that. I’m beginning to think I’m just crazy,” he admitted, after a long pause. “Maybe I’m just barking up the wrong tree? I mean, my dad thought he was on to something, but then he just vanished, you know? I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall. Gaius can’t work out what we need to do, and yet I’ve got this real sense of urgency about just doing something. It’s really frustrating.”

When he looked up, both Gwen and Arthur had trained curious eyes on him.

“Dragons?” Arthur looked sceptical, but didn’t laugh.

“Don’t be mean Arthur.” Gwen frowned at him. “So I’m not the only one suffering a research crisis then.”

“Nope.” Merlin swigged the dregs of his tea and got to his feet. “Let’s have your mugs.”

“Let me know if I can help, Merlin,” said Arthur, folding the paper into an intricate fan, the movement of his strong hands surprisingly delicate, his thumb ring glinting in the morning sunlight that streamed through the kitchen window. “I’m planning another Antarctic trip myself, soon.” Lazy blue eyes pinned Merlin as Arthur lifted his mug. “Maybe we’ll be there at the same time.”

A splinter of sunlight caught Arthur’s ring and swept across Merlin’s vision, blinding him for a second. In the wake of the glare, a kaleidoscope of strange images flicked across Merlin’s mental vision like a sudden waking dream. The colour of Arthur’s eyes mingled with dramatic whites and greys, a landscape of whirling snow and jagged ice, the relentless dazzling sun, Arthur’s triumphant face, split by a delighted grin, filling him with joy. Flying. Flying high, soaring above a bleak white wasteland, the wind on his face, so cold that it hurt, it hurt so much he could scream.

But then the vision gave way to a gaping, immense crevasse, black and fathomless. A second later, Arthur’s body whirled down into it, getting smaller and smaller until it became a tiny speck of red, and then, finally, disappeared from view altogether. All that was left was the darkness. A sense of panic and overwhelming, utter despair gripped him.

He’d had premonitions like this before. Will always dismissed them as migraines, but Merlin couldn’t help thinking that they were a manifestation of his magic, his senses reaching into the future and grasping something terrifying. They’d grown more frequent since he moved in here. More frequent, and ever more haunted by impressions of Arthur, of fire and ice, golden and blue, always clouded with dread and terrible loss. Shivering, he clutched the back of Gwen’s chair and closed his eyes, struggling to get his breath back to normal.

“Merlin?” said Gwen, her hand warm on his. “Are you okay.”

“Yeah,” he said, hoarsely, extracting his hand from her grip and stepping across the room to hide his confusion. “Got up too quick.”

He grabbed the paper and pretended to be absorbed in a two-page discussion of the new international treaty to legalise animal testing for the generation of energy.

Life slipped into an easy rhythm. Merlin found that he was making great headway into his research into the migration patterns of living Antarctic species, but chipped away at his private studies without too much success or enthusiasm, despite Gaius’s dire warnings about destiny and the need to achieve control over his talent.

From time to time, when the hollow ache became too much, Merlin would bring someone home, and endure the waves of disapproval that Arthur shed all over him, like a cat shedding fur, for days afterwards.

It was on such a morning that he wandered into the kitchen where he found Arthur, frowning into his coffee, scribbling into the margins of a text book with a pencil as he chewed on the remains of a bacon sandwich.

“Morning!” said Merlin, cheerfully, scratching at a slightly sore patch on his chin with a wince.

“Mmm,” grunted Arthur, looking up at him for long enough to glare before gazing back down at his book.

It was going to be like that, then, was it?

“Are you going to sulk all day, Arthur, or can we get this out of the way now?” Merlin filled the kettle and pushed down the switch.

“For your information, Merlin,” growled Arthur, “I am not sulking. Pendragons do not sulk.” He took another bite of his sandwich.

“Could have fooled me.” Merlin nodded towards the congealing sandwich. “More coffee? You should probably have something to wash that dead pig down before you choke on it.”

“You are never going to shame me into becoming a vegetarian, Merlin, just as I’m never going to shame you into being careful about your sexual health, so you might as well cut out the bacon sandwich crap.” Arthur’s mouth set into a firm line.

A familiar feeling of mingled annoyance and a nagging sense of shame bubbled up in Merlin’s throat and emerged as resentment.

“You are the one that should cut out the bacon sandwich crap, as you put it,” he retorted, feeling the colour rise up his cheeks. “It’s bad for your waistline, as well as terminally bad for the pig.”

“Spare me the sanctimonious lecture, Merlin,” said Arthur, rising to his feet, his voice low and dangerous, brows drawn together.

“You’re a fine one to talk about being sanctimonious, Mr Safe Sex." Banging his mug down onto the table, Melin steeled himself for the inevitable flannel about his welfare.

“Has it ever occurred to you that I might be genuinely concerned for your wellbeing, Merlin?” said Arthur, drawing in his breath as if to embark upon a long-winded tirade.

“Oh, here we go.” Merlin rolled his eyes and waited for the yelling to start.

“Do you even know his name? The bloke you shagged last night?”

“For your information, he shagged me, and yes I do. It’s… it’s Cedric. Okay? Is that enough for you, are you happy now? Cecil shoved his huge cock up my arse, and I liked it. Or do you want to know more details? About how he tugged my—”

“What?” shouted Arthur, his face darkening. “For fuck’s sake, Merlin, I don’t want to know the sordid little details about your ruinous sex life.” He looked furious, more angry than Merlin had ever seen him, as if this was some kind of personal slight, and he had no right! No right to make feel Merlin feel guilty like that, with his jaw twitching and his fist clenched around his mug. No right to yell and bluster as if Merlin had done something wrong! “I just… I don’t know why I bother even talking to you. You are the rudest, most idiotic—”

“Fuck right off, you pompous, self-righteous, uptight old windbag!” Merlin yelled right back. “You have no right to judge me—”

He jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes to try to hold back the tears. How Arthur always managed to reduce him to this, a sobbing quivering mess, he really didn’t know. He hated it, hated losing control and bawling like a baby.

“You know nothing!” he spat out, eventually, when he’d got his jagged breathing back under control. “You with your cosy relationship and your understanding girlfriend and your… your research funding and your supportive father and your own bloody flat!” Merlin knew he was being unfair, but he couldn’t help it, the words just spilled out of him.

So busy was he, spinning out vitriol and self-pity by turns, that he didn’t notice Arthur stand and cross the room until someone grabbed hold of his shoulders and gave them a hearty shake.

“Shut up, Merlin.” said Arthur, his voice and face oddly calm all of a sudden.

Surprised, Merlin stopped mid-rant, and swallowed.

“I’ll choose to ignore for a second the half-witted, nonsensical way you seem to be blaming me for whatever is troubling you,” said Arthur, “because there is no doubt that you are. Troubled I mean. You are troubled. You are hurting. I am just trying to tell you that… all this…” he sighed and looked away for a second. When he returned his gaze to Merlin, it was a bright, earnest blue. “All this casual sex… I don’t think it is helping you. I think you need help, and that’s not what you’re getting. What happened, Merlin? What happened to your friend? How did he die?”

Nonplussed by this oddly empathetic Arthur, Merlin shook his head.

“I don’t… he… I.” Flashing lights. Wild sirens blaring, shocked faces, blood. Will’s pale, pleading face. “It was…”

A moment later, as his voice trailed off, he realised that he was trembling violently, his shoulders still in Arthur’s grasp, and his vision blurred.

“He was stabbed,” he choked out, eventually, the awfulness of the flat words sucking all the bluster out of him. “He was stabbed. He was trying to bring me my father’s… The life drained out of him in front of my eyes. It was… shit, I… he didn’t deserve that. They couldn’t… I just watched, Arthur! There was nothing I could… He was my friend.”

Arthur nodded, and gradually Merlin became aware of the warmth seeping through Arthur’s hands. It grounded him, made him feel stronger, and he drew in a breath.

“It wasn’t your fault, Merlin,” Arthur said. The way that his thumbs rubbed at Merlin’s biceps was oddly comforting. “All right?” His brows lifted enquiringly.

“But I feel so empty,” Merlin said, trying to ignore how pathetic he sounded to his own ears. “Unless I’m… with someone. I mean.”

“You’re grieving.” Releasing Merlin’s shoulders, Arthur turned to retrieve the still-steaming mug of tea from the table and place it between Merlin’s hands. “Look. I think you should talk to someone. I’m sure Gwen knows a counsellor.”

Merlin smiled a little at that, despite himself.

“Yeah,” he said, voice still a little shaky. “You’re right. I’m sure she does.”

“Right. And stop blaming me for your problems. I’ve got enough of my own.”

It was only then that Merlin realised he didn’t know what problems Arthur had been dealing with. He was a rubbish flatmate. Ashamed, he bit his lip and nodded.

“That’s the spirit.” Clapping him on the shoulder, Arthur settled down to the unappetizing-looking remains of his breakfast. “You know, you should try it.”

“Try what? Bacon?” Merlin took a tentative sip of his tea, which was growing a little tepid.

“Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Merlin. A relationship, I mean. Or at least, having sex with someone you actually know and respect. You’ll find it a vast improvement, I promise.”

“Maybe.” Feeling his spirits unexpectedly beginning to rise, Merlin extracted a pack of mushrooms from the fridge. “Fancy some mushrooms on toast?” he added, by way of a peace offering.

“No thanks.” Arthur was still frowning at his now-empty plate.

Taking a deep breath to cover how guilty he was beginning to feel about some of the unfair things that he’d said, Merlin turned his back on Arthur, and extracted a chopping board from under the work surface, and a sharp knife from the drawer, while he tried to work out how to apologise.

“Stop thinking so hard, Merlin,” Arthur growled. “I can hear the cogs whirring from here and it’s putting me off my breakfast.”

"I was going to say sorry, but I’ve changed my mind, you arrogant, irritating clotpoll,” he said, brandishing a mushroom for effect.

“Apology accepted,” drawled Arthur with a lopsided smile. “Are you threatening me with a mushroom?”

When the two of them exchanged a glance and then simultaneously broke out into howls of laughter, it was like the bright spring that followed a long, grey, dreary winter. Merlin couldn’t put a name to it, then, the strong burst of something golden and joyful that filled him when Arthur laughed like that. All he knew was that the expression belonged there, and that he fervently wished to see it there more often.

“All right then,” he said, feeling reckless and bold. “I promise you that the next time I have sex, it’ll be with someone whose name I know.”

“There you go,” Arthur said, smugly. “It’s not so bad to admit that I’m right, is it?”

“There’s no need to be such a prat about it,” Merlin grinned back.

Gaius’s office was cold today, and condensation fogged the glass of his windowpanes.

Frustrated, Merlin turned the pages of the notebook. Its padded leather cover felt cool and thick under his fingertips.

The book always opened automatically at the entry for 3rd February, 1986, even though the bookmark was set to the final entry, which was some two weeks later. It was as if his magic was telling him something, urging him to find some clue that had hitherto remained hidden.

_“The forces that connect atoms are but a manifestation of love,”_ this entry said. He knew it so well he could recite it by heart, but the found some comfort in tracing the letters scratched out in 2B pencil, more reliable than ink in the quixotic Antarctic summer weather conditions, by his own father’s hand. _“The energy that lies within this secret race, dormant for so long, has the power to save or doom us all. N. wishes to take it and plunder it. I feel in my bones that this will lead to catastrophe. I feel such a bond to these creatures, it cannot be right to exploit them as she suggests.”_

Merlin sighed. He had often wondered who the N. in this entry was, but he had no way of asking his father nor of ever knowing the truth.

The notebook went back to bland entries at that point, field observations and sample numbers from the glacier his father had been investigating, and it wasn’t until later that Balinor started describing his thoughts and feelings again. Unfortunately, some of the writing was obscured – smudges and stains, and at one point a cigarette burn, had irretrievably damaged the manuscript, whether by chance or design Merlin did not know. The entry was in an urgent, messy pencil script, as if Balinor had been hurrying to get his thoughts on paper, or had cold hands.

_“After the terrible tragedy, ……U.… is understandably afraid…. says he has lost everything, although he forgets he has the .... surely must give him hope.… he doesn’t realise how lucky he is. I wish I had a child… destroy the creatures at all costs. But I cannot believe that is the right thing to do. They are unique, and so filled with love that I cannot describe… They have such extraordinary power to heal … but wait. I have to…. I must stop them...”_

It was the last entry that Balinor ever recorded in his notebooks. Merlin had puzzled over this section of it for years. Gaius was convinced that it held some clue to what happened to Balinor, on that ill-fated Antarctic expedition, but it became no clearer each with new reading. Frustrated, Merlin closed it and looked up at Gaius, who was examining him over his fingers in characteristic pose.

“He never knew that mum was pregnant,” said Merlin at last.

“It is a terrible shame." Gaius shook his head. "She must have conceived you before Balinor went on expedition. But he never returned. This notebook was recovered by a later expedition and sent to your mother.”

Merlin nodded. They’d been over this before.

“Who do you think he was talking about?”

“It must have been someone who shared their research interests – someone from the research team – but I am afraid that my freedom of information request has turned up no records of your father’s final expedition.”

The conclusion was obvious; there had been a massive cover up. Powerful people must have been involved in the expedition and the subsequent disappearance of his father. The thought of his poor, grieving mother, alone and pregnant, left with no answers about the loss of her partner, filled him with a burning anger and illogical sense of shame.

His mind was made up as he fingered the notebook.

“Well, I’m going to find out,” he said. “I’m going to find out what happened to my father, and to the missing clutch of dragon eggs.” He looked up at Gaius, sure and determined, and added in a grim tone, “and if I find that someone is responsible, then they will pay.”

“I have no doubt that you will, my boy.” Gaius patted him on the shoulder, his eyes kind. “But be careful. Be very careful. These people are dangerous, and will stop at nothing to meet their own ends. And consider this. If they have managed to cover up the details of the expedition, then their reach must be far indeed. Have a care for your safety, and that of your mother.”

Arthur had never been a fan of the gym. For him, exercise meant sucking in cold air, feeling the sting of damp against the cooling sweat on his face, or the painful dig of grit beneath his fingers. Exercise meant reacting to the changes in his surroundings while his heart thumped, his muscles screamed out a protest, and his senses thrilled to the challenge of subduing the environment. The changing seasons made him feel alive and real, somehow, as he slogged up hills on his beloved Excalibur, or clung by his fingertips and toetips to an ancient rock face with only friction, the rope, and his own balance and expertise between him and the ground.

He dug deeper as he crested the hill, standing up on the pedals, gratefully sinking all his frustration into the effort, ignoring the way that the large muscles of his thighs and arse protested. After a moment or two more, a few more thrusts with his legs, the gradient evened out, and he paused at the summit, balancing on two wheels with his hand on a railing, to watch a squall sweeping across the estuary towards him. His chest heaved with the effort, gloved hands stiff from clenching the handlebars, and the wind battered at his ears and face as he pulled life-giving oxygen into his lungs.

It was at moments like these, when he was alone and high on adrenaline and the exercise-induced euphoria, that he could really think.

Why did it have to be Merlin that Father wanted him to get close to?

He couldn’t deny his attraction. In the months since Merlin had moved into the flat, he’d felt this frustration building, a curious resentment at every stranger that Merlin invited into his bed, until it had become almost an obsession.

Gwen had begun to notice that something was off. She kept giving him concerned looks, which he couldn’t bear. Sometimes her gentle sweetness filled him with such guilt and fury that he had to leave her in his bed, early in the morning, biting out a cold farewell and slamming the door behind him. He couldn’t tell her what was really bothering him, and although that wasn’t her fault, he couldn’t help blaming her for it, which just made him feel even more of a bastard.

She’d become more distant, of late, taking on more voluntary work and spending long days and nights in the lab, and to be honest he couldn’t really blame her. It couldn’t be much fun sitting in the kitchen with him as he brooded, silently, into his teacup.

As Arthur watched, the squall line moved closer. Great, dark grey clouds billowed menacingly across the city, blurring the skyline and obscuring the tall buildings behind a film of rain. He was going to be drenched by the time he got home, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Out here, he could feel his tension lifting with each unforgiving gust, bringing a clarity to his thoughts and feelings.

But his heart clenched when he thought about what his father wanted him to do, how deeply such a betrayal would cut Merlin, who was already so vulnerable.

He would go to Antarctica. Maybe, with distance and time on his side, he could damp down his feelings. Perhaps even find a way of carrying out his father’s wishes without Merlin ever knowing.

Pushing off with a whoop, he angled Excalibur’s wheels down the hill and flew off down it with renewed energy in his limbs.

Laughing, reckless, drunk on the speed and the acceleration, he yelled his defiance to the four winds that assaulted his face and his hands, and pedalled furiously into the curtain of rain, which slammed into him with an audible hiss.

But then, when he got home and lugged Excalibur up the stairs, and tried to open the door with fingers that refused to co-operate, it wasn’t Gwen who answered the door with an exclamation of disapproval.

No, it was Merlin who whisked him inside and fussed around him with a towel. It was Merlin who tied Excalibur to the railings, because Arthur’s hands were shaking too much to cope with the lock, and who ran the shower for him until it was so hot that steam filled the bathroom and he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. It was Merlin who led him to the kitchen table and wrapped him up in warm blankets and ladled hot vegetable soup into him until he stopped shivering and his limbs felt relaxed and heavy. It was Merlin who wrung out his drenched cycling kit and bunged it into the washing machine, while muttering about arrogant clotpolls who had no instinct for self preservation, and thought they could beat the weather.

And it was Merlin who, once he’d felt his extremities begin to tingle with the returning blood flow, led him to his room, tucked him in bed with a fluffy hot-water bottle, decorated with penguins, and closed the door gently telling him to shout if he wanted anything.

And all Arthur could do was curl up around the hot-water bottle, and try not to say anything about what he really wanted, because, if he did, it would ruin everything.

Turning his key in the lock, Merlin dropped his bag onto the floor with a tired thud, and pushed open the door into the kitchen, walking past Gwen and Arthur at the kitchen table on autopilot.

“Evening!” he said. “It’s a vile day, again. Honestly, could someone turn off this climate and give us a better one, pleased? It seems like it hasn’t stopped raining for weeks!” Filling the kettle with a loud spurt of water from the tap, he drew three mugs out of the cupboard. “Do you want tea or coffee?” He prattled on for a bit before realising that no-one was replying, and then let his speech tail off.

“Is everything okay?” he said, into the heavy silence, before answering his own question. “Everything’s not okay.”

“Oh, God, flawless powers of observation as always, Merlin,” said Arthur. His voice sounded strained, even more so than usual, and he buried his head in his hands so that his hair stuck up between them in big, soft spikes.

“I should go,” said Gwen.

“I’ll walk you ho—”

“No!” She reached into her bag. “I’ll call a cab. Good bye Arthur. Merlin.”

“Goodbye, Gwen,” said Arthur, rising to his feet to open the door for her.

She put a hand on his forearm.

"I’ll let myself out,” she said, quietly. From this angle, Merlin could see that her eyes were glistening brightly in the wan light from the window. “Look after yourself, Arthur. Don’t forget, you have the right to make your own choices. You don’t always have to do what your father wants.”

“I wish you every happiness,” said Arthur, formally. “I hope Lance makes you happier than I ever could.”

Feeling suddenly as if he was intruding, in his own kitchen, Merlin turned to the sink and started to rinse out already clean mugs. Anything to avoid looking at the devastation clouding Arthur’s face.

“Thank you,” said Gwen in a small voice.

A moment later, there was a tiny click, followed by a loud silence, which announced the end of something, more surely than any fanfare could.

Merlin left it a good minute before pressing a hot cup of tea into Arthur’s lifeless fingers, grasping Arthur’s hands between his own. Sensing that Arthur didn’t want to talk, he clapped a hand onto Arthur’s upper arm instead.

Arthur’s mouth lifted up on one side in a rueful, self-deprecating grin, and he looked up to meet Merlin’s eyes.

“It’s been over for a while, to be honest,” he said.

Merlin nodded, and, not knowing what to say, said nothing.

“You’re remarkably quiet for a change,” said Arthur, his voice cracking only a little. “I should get dumped more often.” Holding the mug of tea in one hand, he rubbed his hand round the back of his neck with the other, a familiar gesture that he often made when he was tired.

“Not much chance of that, when you’ve had the same girlfriend for two years,” said Merlin.

“God, is it really that long? No wonder she was sick of me.”

“She wasn’t sick of you, Arthur,” said Merlin. “You’ve been growing apart for a long time. You know you have.”

“Well aren’t you the expert on relationships all of a sudden!”

“Meow!” said Merlin, feeling his face break into a smile. If Arthur was able to employ the biting sarcasm, things couldn’t be that bad.

“Let’s get drunk,” said Arthur, abruptly, slamming his tea down onto the table.

“Arthur are you sure that’s the right…?” Merlin felt a frown crease his brow.

“Let me rephrase that. I’m going to get paralytically drunk. You have a choice. Either you join me, or not.” Arthur had that intent look on his face, the one that meant he had made his mind up, and fuck the consequences.

Sighing, Merlin weighed up the options for a moment or two, before nodding. At least if he went along for the ride, he could make sure that Arthur didn’t end up bleeding his life away into a gutter on the bitter, ill-directed whim of an aggrieved Scotsman.

“Well, come on then." Arthur's mouth was set into a grim line as he strode into the hallway with all the joy of a condemned man walking to his noose. “There are only six hours of drinking time left, and I’m going to get wasted.”

An hour later, Merlin thought that Arthur had probably had enough. Arthur was perched, loose-limbed and jovial, on a bar-stool, with the remains of a pint of eighty shilling in his hand. His normally hard edges seemed somehow blurred, and his usual sardonic grin had morphed into something sweeter and more self deprecating.

Merlin couldn’t stop looking at it.

As if that wasn’t unsettling enough, instead of glowering at Merlin from beneath furrowed brows, Arthur’s gaze had become soft-edged and uncertain, and when he looked up at Merlin like that, all young and vulnerable, it made Merlin’s collar feel tight.

“It’s probably just as well,” Arthur was saying, with a bright laugh. “Lance is a pretty amazing guy. I’m sure he’ll treat her right, the bastard. I should hate him. I don’t hate him. Why don’t I hate him, Merlin?”

Merlin wasn’t sure how to handle this new, unrepressed version of Arthur who asked him for his opinions about feelings instead of locking them away and frowning a lot. Taking a sip of his beer to stall for time, he eventually managed to formulate a sentence in his head, but it seemed that his input was not required after all, because Arthur was talking again.

“I suppose it’s hard to hate someone who’s that good looking and so bloody damn…” Arthur waved his pint around vaguely, some of it sloshing perilously close to the top of the glass. “Damn gorgeous and… and… nice.”

“Yeah,” said Merlin, fascinated by the movements of Arthur’s throat as he swallowed a large draught of his beer. “Bloody nice people. How dare they? Bastards.”

“Yeah.” Arthur threw his head back and laughed. “Bloody bastards. Wankers. The lot of them. Shit.” Downing the rest of his pint in one go, he belched and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing a white streak of foam across his face that Merlin itched to wipe away with his thumb. “Another one of the same?” Arthur slammed his pint glass down on the bar and waved at the bartender.

“Don’t you think you’ve had en—”

“No!” said Arthur. “I definitely haven’t.”

Shit. It was going to be a long night.

“Look, Arthur,” said Merlin, desperately trying to think of a way to slow things down, and deciding to appeal to Arthur’s better nature. “I can’t drink that fast. I’ll be ill!”

Arthur snorted, licking his lips as the next round was delivered.

“Lightweight,” he said, devouring a great gulp of the beer.

But then something – the appeal to his ego perhaps – must have got through, because piercing blue eyes appraised Merlin from head to toe, lingering for an unnecessary moment at belt level, and then back up again.

“Hmm,” said Arthur, sounding a little hoarse all of a sudden from shouting above the pub’s din and clatter. “Yeah. Look at you! There’s nothing to you. I should probably go easy on you.”

Flushing, and not just from the beer, Merlin stood up and leaned forward a little so that their faces were nearly touching.

“There’s plenty to me,” he said, not bothering to raise his voice. “You’re just looking in the wrong place.”

Arthur’s eyes flicked down.

“Is that right?” he said, biting his bottom lip then releasing it so that sprang back, pink and swollen, from under his tooth.

“Yeah,” said Merlin. “Damn straight.”

Arthur nodded. “Okay!”

“Okay!” said Merlin, nodding back. They must have looked like the pigeons on Gaius’s window-sill. Struck by the absurdity of this sudden thought, Merlin found himself pressing his hand to his mouth to push down the laughter that was welling up inside him.

“What?” said Arthur, looking nonplussed.

“You!” Tears of mirth cascaded down Merlin’s face. “Me! Pigeons!”

“Pigeons?” Arthur rolled his eyes. Idiot!” he said, smiling fondly. “You’re not making any sense at all. I should definitely not give you any more beer.”

“That’s the spirit, Arthur.” Relieved, Merlin nodded, feeling his expression settle into a smile. “Look. You’re a free man, now. Why don’t we go dancing?”

There was a short pause, into which poured the sounds of The Black Eyed Peas singing that they had a feeling that tonight was going to be a good night.

Arthur’s face cracked into a wide-mouthed grin.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Why not?”

_The Vaults_ was a well named venue. A cavernous space deep within the depths of the Old Town, with tall, soot-darkened buildings crowding it on all sides, entering it felt like plunging into the netherworld. An interior decorator with more ideas than talent had painted the entrance lobby dark crimson, and adorned it grim medieval depictions of hell. Its freakish decor and liberal attitudes attracted a wide range of clientele, particularly on themed nights like this one.

Rainbow night. Merlin should have realised that he was doomed the moment Arthur mentioned it.

By the time they had settled into the club, any caution had evaporated in a haze of beer-induced euphoria. The tempo of the music drove the accelerating surge of his pulse.

And that wasn’t all.

Because who would have guessed that Arthur could dance like that? Merlin supposed he should have realised. Arthur with his balance and poise on the climbing wall, his physicality and enthusiasm, was bound to be co-ordinated and skilful. That was just the way he was. Arthur didn’t let his hair down very often, but clearly, when he did, when he let all that pent up charisma loose, he summoned something bright and fierce that compelled all those around him to just gaze at him and be overwhelmed. A semicircle of adoring acolytes surrounded him, basking in his glory, and who could blame them? In his tight jeans and sharp shirt, with his wicked smile and flashing eyes, he shone so brightly that he was almost painful to look at.

Merlin, wound up as tight as a drum by weeks of frustration, his magic swirling, restless under his skin, was powerless to resist this Arthur. This Arthur, who dragged him onto the dancefloor and whirled him around until he was giddy, who urged him to leap and spin until he was sweaty and breathless, who dazzled him with spectacular smiles and outbursts of sheer reckless hedonism, this Arthur was terrifying and glorious by turns.

It seemed like only moments later that Arthur pulled him into an alcove and thrust him up against the wall, covering his mouth in generous and enthusiastic kisses that made Merlin’s heart want to burst through his ribcage.

A small voice in the back of Merlin’s mind screamed at him to be careful, that Arthur was on the rebound, that Merlin was taking advantage of Arthur’s emotional vulnerability, that he should stop this right now.

But Arthur’s firm hands gripped Merlin’s arse, mashing their hips together, the hot bulge that pushed Arthur’s trousers out making Merlin’s jeans feel so tight he could burst.

“Fuck, Merlin.” Arthur ducked his head to groan in Merlin’s ear, his breath hot and intent against Merlin’s skin, louder even than the sound of the speakers.

Merlin’s conscience was nearly drowned in the flood of lust that surged through his veins when Arthur started fumbling with Merlin’s belt.

“Look. Not here! Look, let me take you home,” said Merlin, pushing Arthur away as he desperately tried to hold on the last tattered shreds of his decency. “C’mon, Arthur!”

“Fuck yeah,” said Arthur, resting his forehead on Merlin’s, hand on Merlin’s hip, “I thought you’d never ask.”

And that hadn’t been what Merlin meant, not at first anyway, but the desperate, gravelly sound in Arthur’s voice and the way that his heat and bulk made Merlin burn with want chased away his qualms.

The cool air sobered Arthur up a little, but did nothing to dampen the tight heat that clenched in his gut every time he glanced across at Merlin. He made himself wait, willed himself to slow his pace, saunter through the damp streets, but an electric thrill of anticipation shot through him each time his hand butted up against Merlin’s as they walked. Finally, he was going to lay this demon to rest. He was going to take what he needed from Merlin and scratch away this itch that had gnawed at him for so many months. It was what they both needed, he was sure of it.

When at long last he wrestled the door to his flat open, he wasted no time. Kicking it shut behind Merlin, he dove straight against him, grabbing at his belt and pushing him hard up against the wall.

Firm, tensing buttocks strained against his hands. Soft yielding lips, sweet and succulent, invited him in deeper, moist and eager, tongue tempting him with dizzying, writhing swirls. Arthur crammed up against Merlin as hard as he could, crowding him against the wall, yanking at Merlin’s belt until he could push their still-clad erections together with a grunt of satisfaction.

“Arthur. I think we should stop.” Merlin turned his head, his lips parted, breath gusting through in desperate little pants that raised goose bumps on Arthur’s neck.

Arthur traced the dark outline of a bruise along Merlin’s jaw with a fascinated tongue, relishing the rough texture of his stubble.

“Why?” he whispered, palming the hard line of Merlin’s cock through his jeans. “Why on earth stop now?”

“But you’re not… Arthur, you’re on the rebound! Jesus!” Merlin groaned, his hips canting minutely forwards into Arthur’s hand as if to give the lie to his words. “You shouldn’t… I shouldn’t… you don’t do this, Arthur, you’re not that person.“

“Come on, Merlin! I’m a grown up, you won’t break me.” Biting his lip and looking down, Arthur fumbled at Merlin’s belt with clumsy fingers.

“You’re vulnerable, Arthur.” But Merlin did nothing to stop him. “I need to know this is what you really want.”

“Shut up, Merlin. Ah! Here we go.” Belt dealt with, Arthur slipped his hand beneath Merlin’s waistband. Seeking and finding the warm heft of his straining erection he pressed the length of his hand against it, the angle and tight fit of his clothes making anything else impractical. “If it wasn’t what I wanted, I wouldn’t be doing this.” He gave Merlin’s cock a little squeeze.

“Jesus, Arthur.” Merlin hissed through his teeth and tipped his head back until it bashed against the wall with an audible thud.

Noting with satisfaction that Merlin’s legs were trembling, Arthur pressed hard up against him.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” he said in a low growl, rubbing Merlin’s balls. “Just say the word and I’ll stop.”

Merlin just whimpered, but his hands slipped behind Arthur’s back and slid down to cup his buttocks.

“Just one word.” Pulling his hand out of the inviting warmth of Merlin’s crotch for a moment, Arthur undid the button and fly of Merlin’s jeans and tugged them down till they pooled on the floor, swiftly followed by his pants. Merlin’s pale thighs gleamed in the dim light that filtered in through the skylight, and his cock sprang out, dark and urgent in Arthur’s grip. The sight and feel of it, hot and thick and perfect, made moisture pool in Arthur’s mouth, and a wave of heat flooded over him. “Fuck. Look at you. You look like you’re ready to go off any second.”

Sinking to his knees, taut with anticipation, Arthur traced Merlin’s cock from root to tip with his tongue, watching with fascination as it bobbed under his touch, and then looked up at Merlin, who was staring down at him, slack-mouthed and dark-eyed.

“Just say stop,” said Arthur, sliding his hand between Merlin’s thighs to caress the taut fold of muscle behind his balls. “And I’ll stop.”

But instead, long fingers slipped between the strands of his hair and caressed his scalp, gently guiding him forwards.

Arthur’s eyes drifted closed and his lips parted to let Merlin glide inside, and each hitch in Merlin’s breath mingled with the rushing sound of his pulse until there was nothing but heat and tension and a quiet sense of rising need.

Later on, Merlin lay breathless and panting beneath him, his limbs sprawled across his bed, all butter-pale skin and darkening-pink fingerprints. The fleshy mounds of Merlin’s buttocks flexed and writhed in Arthur’s grasp. The soft moan that Merlin let out as Arthur gripped him and eased in was nearly enough to push him over the edge.

When Merlin threw his head back and shouted his name, his eyes flashing gold by the light flooding in from the street, pulse upon pulse of sweet ecstasy burned through Arthur. Cool, dark fire coursed across Merlin’s skin like a tattoo, crimson and gold in the wake of Arthur’s fingers wherever he touched. It was like nothing he’d ever felt or seen. Burying his face in Merlin’s nape, Arthur gave into the sensations and cried out, overwhelmed.

Turning as Arthur withdrew, Merlin clung on to him, his face wet. Arthur held him as the tremors faded into twitches. Slowly, Merlin’s limbs, still flushed and sweat-slick, relaxed and became heavy and his breathing grew sleep-slow and languorous. But Arthur lay awake, pressing kisses to Merlin’s temple, wondering what had just happened.

He hadn’t been imagining things. Something very odd had happened at the peak of their lovemaking. Arthur didn’t know what it was; all he knew for certain was that his body hungered to see, taste and above all to feel it again.

Was this what they’d all had, with Merlin? The array of nameless, undeserving faces that had taken what they wanted and left? Why did they never stay? He could not understand it. With a surge of possessive fury, Arthur curled his hand into the tangle of sweat-dark hair at Merlin’s nape and tried not to think about them again.

He didn’t think he’d sleep, with all the dark thoughts that assailed him, but he must have done because the next thing he was aware of was the soft warmth of lips pressed to his eyes. Blinking at the unfamiliar surroundings, he stretched and looked across to find Merlin’s eyes on him.

“How’s the head?” said Merlin.

Arthur smiled. “Not too bad,” he lied. It wasn’t the alcohol, so much, as the guilt and uncertainty that roiled in his gut.

“So." Merlin’s answering grin was a blaze of freckles and eye-wrinkles. “Turns out that sex with someone whose name you actually know isn’t so bad.”

“I suppose a one-night stand’s not so bad either,” said Arthur, wanting to say so much more, but unable to find the words. He felt his heart sink as Merlin’s joyful smile turned to something oddly forced.

“Is that what this is, then?” said Merlin. “A one night stand?”

“I… er…” Looking away for a moment, Arthur felt shame stain his cheeks.

“Right.” Merlin sighed and rubbed at his face. “I suppose that’s that.”

Arthur wanted to say no. He wanted to pull Merlin down on him and cover his body with kisses until he was breathless and giddy with laughter. He wanted to melt under the caress of Merlin’s clever hands, to feel them press firm and sturdy against his body until it made his pulse quicken and his cock swell. But he swallowed, dumbly, and bit his lip, because he was confused and he didn’t know what to say.

His conscience was shouting that this was exactly what his father wanted him to do, to burn himself into Merlin’s memory and insinuate himself into Merlin’s trust, and then to take what he needed to know and flee. But his body, warm and rousing, longed with every fibre to stay.

“Tell me to stop,” whispered Merlin, his eyes clouding and his lips dark and puffy, “just say the word and I’ll stop. I promise.” His hands – long, elegant, surgeon’s hands, pianist’s hands, so smooth and skilful – swept down Arthur’s chest, stopping for a second to tease his nipple so that Arthur let out a breathless gasp. Down, down they crept, and he should tell Merlin no, tell him to stop, this was never meant to be more than a one night stand. It as never meant to feel like this, so blissful and tender and laden with hidden meaning. But he couldn’t bring himself say it.When he opened his mouth, no words came out.

And when Merlin’s lips and tongue followed, whispering dirty promises into the skin of Arthur’s belly and thighs, he couldn’t have spoken even if he’d wanted to.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” he said, later. He needed to say something, because he knew this was different. This wasn’t like the other ones who had dressed and left before the morning, before Merlin had a chance to wound them with his molten kisses and brand their skin with his smouldering eyes.

Merlin looked wary, then resigned.

Grabbing Merlin’s hand, Arthur pressed it to his naked chest, willing him to understand.

“I’m leaving,” he said, firmly. “I have to go. I… I need you to understand that I didn’t expect this to happen, and now I don’t want to go. But it’s something I have to do, and I cannot tell you about it, only that it would be dishonourable of me to stay.”

“You’re leaving?” Merlin’s voice hitched, as if this was something new and devastating to him, and the sound made Arthur’s heart break.

“I hate having to go. Because this… this is…” He didn’t have a name for what it was. “Believe me, Merlin. I think this, what we have just. I’d like to think that it’s more than just once. I know it was never meant to be but it feels like more. To me.”

“It does to me, too.” Merlin’s voice was barely a whisper.

With rapidly beating heart and skipping breath, Arthur traced the tattoo that sprawled across Merlin’s stomach. It looked like a dragon, its tail snaking round his hip towards his back. He hadn’t noticed it last night. It seemed to writhe and glow under his touch, growing hotter and hotter until it burned Arthur’s finger and Merlin hissed. Arthur drew his hand back.

"Sorry, I didn’t know you had a tattoo.”

“I was born with it.” Merlin’s breath hitched when he stared down at where Arthur’s fingers were describing an arc across his skin. “It’s not a tattoo. It’s a birthmark. But...“ his voice trailed off, and he looked suddenly puzzled. “It looks different. It feels different.”

“Is it sensiti— whoa! It moves!" Arthur stared at it, fascinated. "How did you do that? Is it magic? It burned me!”

He moved to touch it again, even though his finger was hurting.

Merlin’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.

“It’s moved,” he said, looking a little wild-eyed. “It feels hot… I didn’t— I don’t know what’s happening, Arthur. I’m magic. I’ve got magic. I didn’t tell you before because it was— I didn’t know it could do anything. This is new. It feels like… it feels like it’s coming alive.”

Arthur looked at the wall for inspiration, and he could have sworn that the dragon mural on it winked at him.

“Am I imagining it? Or does that mural look different this morning?” Arthur couldn’t help his shudder. It was uncanny, that mural. It always had been.

Merlin’s breath gusted across his skin as he looked at it, and his breathing quickened.

“I think you might be right.” He shrugged. “Does it bother you?”

“No more than usual.” Arthur sighed, feeling a headache begin to nag at him between his eyes, the events of the last twenty four hours catching up with him, perhaps.

“Why do you hate it so, the mural I mean?” Merlin’s steady gaze was kind, but oddly perceptive.

“This will sound weird, to you,” Casting around for words that didn’t reveal too much, but didn’t lie either, Arthur gazed at the ceiling. “But it… my mother died when I was a baby. There’s a bit of a mystery about her death, and the family myth goes that dragons killed her. So the mural… it’s a personal dig. It reminds me of how much my sister hates me and my father.”

“I’m so sorry, Arthur.” Merlin swallowed and looked away. “It’s weird how our family myths shape us. We have one too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! It’s about my father… he disappeared, before I was born. In Antarctica. But the story goes that first, he found a clutch of dragon eggs.” Earnest-eyed, and innocent-like, Merlin looked like he was trying not to sound too ridiculous.

Arthur’s breath hitched. This was the information he needed, this was what his father wanted him to find out about. The guilt that clawed at his chest was almost overwhelming.

“Amazing.” With his heart thudding erratically like that, it was hard not to sound too interested.

“It’s why I’m researching migration patterns in modern-day avian species. You see, we think, Gaius and I that is, that dragons, just like modern-day birds, are a remnant of the dinosaurs. Arctic terns migrate from the Antarctic to the Arctic every year, Arthur. Thirty thousand miles! Every single year! Imagine that!”

As always when Merlin was talking about wild creatures, his eyes sparkled and his hands described great circles in his excitement.

Arthur couldn’t breathe.

“We think that dragons have survived mass extinctions and glaciations by laying their eggs in ice caves, away from any predators. They’re unique. They have developed a way of creating energy without using sunlight. For want of a better word, we call this energy magic. And it keeps the eggs alive for years – millennia, even. Their fire keeps them warm blooded, and their magic is tied to that of the Earth itself.”

Merlin’s face was rapt and otherworldly as he described his research. Fascinated, Arthur listened to his words despite his own misgivings.

“My mum was unable to conceive kids,” Merlin added, “or rather Dad was. But then he went to Antarctica, and Mum says that the dragons healed him, and that’s why I was able to be born. Dragonborn, she calls me.” He laughed, so that Arthur could feel his rib cages shaking. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’ve never told anyone before. But I suppose it’s nice to have some sort of personal myth. And mine’s kind of the opposite of yours. Like we’re two sides of a coin, or something!”

Arthur laughed as well, trying to disguise the heaviness of his heart.

“In that case,” he said, tracing the dragon tattoo with his finger again, fascinated at its heat and rough texture, before turning in to kiss Merlin on the mouth. “This must be destiny. We shouldn’t fight it.”

“No indeed,” said Merlin, smiling so that Arthur could feel the twist of lips under his mouth.

Merlin paused before knocking. The wood felt cool but not cold under his fingers. He could feel every knot. If he closed his eyes, he could sense the memory of the surge of sap through the ancient grains. The sensation was calming, and he rested his forehead against the door for a moment, trying to quiet the maddening buzz of the thoughts that crowded his head.

He’d never felt this before. For the very first time, rather than being a passive thing, a channel that brought the thoughts and emotions of others into the waiting receptacle of Merlin’s mind, he had actually made something happen, albeit unconsciously. Even if he hadn’t directed it, hadn’t seen and felt it, the changes to his skin and to the dragon mural on his wall were incontrovertible evidence that he’d actually done something with his magic.

The ecstasy and euphoria of sex with Arthur had done something to him. Something irrevocable and terrifying. Something new and yet permanent. Nothing and nobody would ever be the same for him now. The physical distance between them sapped him, physically painful, even now, when it was only a few miles. The marks on his skin throbbed and ached with it, and he longed to return, to seek safe haven in Arthur’s embrace. What would it be like when Arthur left on this secret mission of his father’s? Just the thought of it made him feel nauseated, and brought beads of sweat to his brow.

In the end he didn’t need to knock; the door burst open, and Gaius stood there, his hair wilder and more dishevelled than Merlin had ever seen it before.

“Ah. Come in, dear boy. Thank goodness you came so quickly.”

“What?” How could Gaius have known he was coming? He hadn’t called to say so; he just knew that there was only one person that could help him sort out the tangle of his conflicting thoughts and feelings.

“You did get my message?” Gaius swept some papers off a chair and beckoned for him to sit.

“What message?” This was even more confusing. “I came because I needed to talk to you about… I mean, I didn’t know about any message. I just… something’s happen—”

“Yes, yes, never mind about that. This is important.” Gaius slumped heavily into his leather armchair and ran a shaking hand through his hair, before grabbing an open brown A4 envelope and thrusting it into Merlin’s hand. “Read this.”

Frowning, Merlin reached inside it with two fingers.

“It’s a good thing that George still works at the patent office,” Gaius mumbled, rocking back and forth on his chair. “Goodness me, goodness me, what if we hadn’t known? Dear dear. This will not do at all.”

Quickly scanning through the document, Merlin did not understand at first. But at the second reading he felt a chill steal through his blood. Mouth dropping open, he exchanged a wordless look with his mentor.

Gaius nodded. “You see?”

“This can’t be… I… I mean, they have no right. Who is this Nimueh Síodh Linn anyway?” He fumbled over the unfamiliar surname, pronouncing it _Sidlin_.

“It’s pronounced Shee- Lin, her surname, not Sidlin. It’s Irish. She’s a very dangerous woman.” Gaius sighed. “If she ever found out about your… abilities… you would be in deadly danger. I am serious. This patent proves that.”

Merlin glanced down at it again.

At first glance, the cover page was seemingly innocuous legalese. The patent, which had been filed on behalf of Avalon Energy Ltd, was entitled _“Process for generating energy by nuclear fusion, using dragons”_. To the unknowing eye, this would be a crackpot patent, probably the UK patent office had a good laugh even as they filed it.

But when he looked again, a number of chilling facts came to mind. The first was that there were other inventors listed:

_INVENTORS: SíODH LINN, Nimueh. 32 Primrose Drive, Camelot C44 8EB. KNIGHT, Morgause. 18, Sky Way, Camelot C44 7JL. PENDRAGON, Morgana. Flat 9, 25 King Street, Camelot C8 9LV._

Pendragon, Morgana.

Arthur’s sister.

Merlin shivered.

“As far as I can see,” said Gaius, oblivious to Merlin’s inner panic, leaning forward with his elbows on his bony, tweed-covered knees, “Avalon Energy are proposing to farm dragons to extract their energy generating organs. And they provide detailed and explicit diagrams.”

“But that’s impossible! International legislation dictates… you can’t patent animals, Gaius.”

“Things have changed, Merlin. A new treaty was passed. Animal experimentation to aid research into generating energy is now permitted. I can’t help thinking that it’s linked to this.” He poked at the patent. “But there is no way that anyone would try to file something unless they had concrete evidence to support their case. Which raises two possibilities, Merlin.”

“I suppose – either they’re completely barmy, or… or…” The second possibility made Merlin feel, if anything, even more nauseated than before. “No!”

Gaius nodded. “I believe that they have already experimented on several creatures to derive detailed information about their anatomy and physiology.”

Thunderstruck, Merlin looked up at Gaius when he realised the implication of this information.

“Father’s missing clutch of dragon eggs,” he whispered.

Gaius nodded. “Someone else on that expedition must have been responsible for spiriting them away.You may be able to find some clue in your father’s field notebook about what happened. In the meantime, stay away from Nimueh Síodh Linn and anyone connected with Avalon Energy Ltd. And for heaven’s sake, Merlin, until you are able to defend yourself against her, your magic must remain a secret.”

“I… er… about that…”

It was amazing how much disdain Gaius could convey by just lifting a single enquiring eyebrow.

_PENDRAGON, Morgana._

Merlin sighed. “There’s something I need to tell you.” He lifted his shirt, exposing the dragon birthmark that encircled his waist.

“Merlin! Your birthmark – it’s changed! It’s much bigger. What happened, my boy?”

“I—er. I.” For a moment, Merlin was at a loss for words. “My magic. It did it. Er.”

“Dear boy, how extraordinary.” Frowning, Gaius leaned forward in his chair. He lifted his glasses onto his forehead and peered at it, poking it with a wrinkled finger. “It’s so intricate. And… I see what you mean. Yes. It changes colour, when you look at it. It’s like it’s trying to hide, somehow. Fascinating. But I don’t understand, my boy. What happened? It’s all a bit sudden, isn’t it? Your magic has always been so passive, before”

“I think… I think I’ve found my soul mate." Merlin let out a laugh that was half way to a sob, and let the hem of his shirt fall back down to cover the tattoo. “But he’s leaving. And he’s… he’s a Pendragon.”

Rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands, partly to dam the tide of tears that threatened to spill, and partly to drown out the concern that was emanating from Gaius in waves, felt his breathing quicken and his throat constrict.

“Ah, my dear boy,” said Gaius, his voice thick with compassion. Footsteps crossed the room and a dry, bony hand patted his shoulder. “There, there. There, there.”

After a while, when Merlin’s breathing had settled a bit, and the searing, blistering pain of the dragon on his skin had calmed to a gentler ache, Gaius returned to his chair and sat with his palms pressed together, deep in thought.

“Can you use it at will?” he said, eventually, peering at Merlin over his fingertips.

“I… I don’t think so.”

“Try.”

Obediently, Merlin closed his eyes and tried to calm his senses. The burning sensation around the dragon birthmark intensified. He pursed his lips against it, and concentrated on reaching out with his mind, until he found the pigeons nesting on Gaius’s windowsill. They were both roosting; their minds felt fuzzy and dull.

And yet… _suddenly he was there, he was outside, head tucked under his wing, he could feel his tail feathers ruffling gently in the breeze. It wouldn’t take much to wake and stretch out, slip between the gusts and pummel them down until the earth lay far below. But it was not yet time for that. His mate was sitting on her clutch, and there would be time soon enough to seek food for her._

“Merlin,” _said a soft, familiar-sounding voice, far away. It seemed to be calling him, back to something, he did not know what._

_Feeling resentment bubble up inside him, he tried to tell it to go away, but it became more insistent._

“Merlin! Come back, dear boy!” _said the voice, sharp and crisp._

_A snapping noise made him jump, and he cooed in protest, opening one eye and cocking it at the window. But then he remembered who he really was, and with a wrench he pulled himself away, until there was an acute pain at his midriff and a sudden tug at his wing._

Abruptly, Merlin returned to himself, drawing in a lengthy breath, his heart pounding, the last of his reluctance fading.

His eyes fluttered open, and he stood there, panting, Gaius tugging at his arm with a concerned lift of his eyebrow.

“Merlin? My boy?” Gaius snapped his fingers in front of Merlin’s eyes.

“It’s all right,” said Merlin, still breathing heavily. “I’m back.”

How easy it would have been to stay! He could have remained forever in that undemanding place, with only his basic needs, to feed, to sustain, to fly!

“You will need to learn how to harness your magic, Merlin,” Gaius said.

“Harness my magic? But how?” After nearly remaining as a pigeon, he didn’t need to ask why.

“And you should make sure that Arthur does not give away your secrets.” Gaius added. “To do so would put you both in grave danger”

Merlin nodded. Things had been difficult enough with Arthur when he left that morning, but he could see the logic of what Gaius said.

“But who… where?” He flexed his fingers, remembering the feel of the wind in his wingtips.

“Well, dear boy, the druids have been waiting for your birthmark to awaken.” Smiling, Gaius sat back in his chair, tapping the desk with a pen. “You must go to them, but do not neglect your studies! Once that patent gets filed, you will have to hurry to save the last of the dragons your Father found. They are safe in Antarctica for now, but if this Avalon Energy company should get there first, any chance of meeting your destiny will be lost.”

 

Conflicting thoughts and emotions crowded his head as he made his way back to the flat. He had to learn to control his magic, but how would the druids be able to help? What would happen if Avalon Energy managed to secure the patent? Had they been breeding the dragons? How did they incubate the eggs?

From his father’s research, dragon eggs needed to hatch in isolated ice caves, deep within glaciers. Were they proposing to breed the dragons in Antarctica? But from his father’s research, dragons were not only sentient but intelligent. His whole being baulked at the idea of using sentient creatures on such an industrial scale. Surely the only right thing to do would be to form partnerships with them, as his father had attempted to do, and not to exploit them.

At the thought of an innocent creature, recently hatched, being brutally murdered and callously mined for its innate abilities, Merlin burned with a righteous anger that seared him to the marrow.

And then there was Arthur. Arthur, whose touch had awakened something in him, something that he couldn’t put back to sleep. His body yearned for it. He felt complete in some fundamental way, felt more alive, despite his fatigue, than he had done for months.

He barely noticed the gleam of the streetlights as he meandered through the darkening streets. Before his churning thoughts had settled, his feet were bringing him home, tap tapping up the stone stairwell, and the key was turning in the lock.

Distantly, he noted the sounds of Arthur packing in his bedroom, and his heart, already aching and anxious, clenched at the thought of the distance that would soon lie between them. He paused outside Arthur’s door, hand poised to knock.

But Arthur owed him nothing, he knew that. It had only ever been meant to be a one night stand, and now Arthur was leaving. The whole extraordinary connection that Merlin felt, the rising tide of yearning that filled his bones and his heart, was his alone. He had no right to demand anything of Arthur, no right to exact promises or guarantees. By all rights, he should back away, now, let Arthur pack in peace, and let his own fragile heart mend. Slowly, his hand began to drop

That was when Arthur opened the door and beckoned him in. From the dark circles under Arthur’s eyes, he was as tired as Merlin.

Merlin stepped over the threshold, willing his hands to co-operate. It took every ounce of his strength to stop himself from reaching out to fix Arthur’s dark-pink lips under his. His fingers twitched, and he jammed them into his pockets, longing to reach round Arthur and pull him in.

It seemed Arthur had no such compunction.

For a short while they gave in to their need.

Afterwards, they drowsed together on Arthur’s bed, limbs entwined, sharing their warmth well into the night.

But the next morning when Merlin woke in Arthur’s bed, having broken all his rules and spent a second night with the same person, he could see that Arthur was already awake, and from the set expression on Arthur’s face he knew what he was about to say.

“I…” Arthur swallowed, his adam’s apple dipping in the pale grey light that seeped in through the curtains. “I think it’s better if we don’t do this any more.”

The conflicting feelings that raged through Merlin made his breath catch in his throat and his magic roil under his skin, and he couldn’t say anything for a moment. But then, somehow, he managed to moisten his suddenly dry mouth.

“All right,” he whispered, afraid to betray his inner turmoil by speaking out loud. He turned over to exit the bed, landing on one foot with a thud, and gathering his clothes with as much dignity as he could muster, padded barefoot to the door, where he paused with one hand on the handle.

Arthur’s eyes glittered, black in the gloom.

“I’m sorry, Merlin,” he said, gruffly, with the slightest hint of a tremor that betrayed the depth of his emotion. “It has meant a lot to me… this… but I have to leave soon, and I won’t be back for a long time. I think it’s for the best, that’s all. I’ll never… I won’t forget you. But there’s something that I have to do, and it’s dangerous… I think it’s best if I don’t have any long term attachments. I’m sorry.”

Nodding, Merlin felt his vision blur and turned to leave, closing the door quietly behind him. He couldn’t help feeling that he’d left a slice of his heart behind.

“No. You are trying too hard. Don’t strain and push like that. Find the quiet point of stillness deep within yourself, and then use the words of the spell to request the power from the Goddess.”

Taliesin’s eyes, normally a pale, piercing blue, glowed deep gold as he uttered the incantation, and Merlin’s skin prickled, as he felt the familiar sweep of magic raise the hairs on his arms like a warm gust of wind or breath.

Closing his eyes, Merlin pulled his awareness deep inside him, a tiny singularity. Inhaling and exhaling, he kept it there, hovering, an enquiry, and a request. At Taliesin’s signal he let it expand, increment by increment, taking in atoms, molecules, cells. Out, out, out, until he reached the edge of himself. Out beyond the confines of his body, slowly taking in the glade where they sat, then the over-arching canopy, alive with birdsong. Far, beyond into the pale blue unknown.

“Good.” Taliesin’s voice sounded within Merlin’s head. “That’s better. And back.”

His control was growing, and with it his power, but his magic was still unpredictable, prone to both flaring up and deserting him at moments of stress. He was quickly coming to realise that the difficult part of being a magic user was in learning to control his own thoughts and emotions, not those of the others around him.

As his magical prowess improved, he was growing closer to unlocking the puzzle of his own power, but not to solving the questions around his father’s disappearance all those years ago. His instincts told him that he would find no answers without visiting the scene of the crime. There may even be physical traces, frozen into the glacier, that he would be able to see or feel with his hypersenses.

Sighing, he went back to his studies with renewed focus, trying to ignore the ever-present nagging of his dragon birthmark, hidden beneath the waistband of his trousers.

It felt as if Arthur’s name was etched into Merlin’s skin.

 

**END OF PART ONE**


	2. Part 2: Tintagel Station, Antarctica

**DRAGONBORN**

**PART TWO: TINTAGEL STATION, ANTARCTICA**

Five Years Later

As the incoming station leader, Arthur had reached Tintagel Station in the first airlift, that November. The overwinterers tended to arrive early, so that they could overlap with the outgoing overwintering team and learn the ropes.

The nights were growing short. Soon they would be gone altogether, and there would be a flurry of frantic activity under the relentless distant glare of the Antarctic sun. At Christmas the sea-ice would retreat enough to let the supply ships arrive. They would have a few short weeks to accomplish the research for the whole year – for some, a whole lifetime. But then the brief summer would be over, the sea-ice would start to spread again, and the summer visitors would have to go home. Come February, only a handful of them would be left at Tintagel station. The days would dim and grow ever shorter. And by the end of April they would be plunged into perpetual night.

That is when the real adventure would begin. And with it, Arthur's dilemma.

Now more than ever he felt that he could not win. Either he would have to capitulate to his father’s wishes and drive the desecration of the wilderness in the name of Oil or, if he managed to overcome the planetary albedo problem, he would be granted the opportunity to change this fragile and savage landscape forever by turning it into a giant carbon sink. Neither option appealed. If only there was a third way!

And then there was his father’s other, secret, mission. On that, he had to succeed. He and his father were of one mind on that, at least.

He’d been there a week, now, helping with the preparations for the incomers, and today they would meet the second group of overwinterers. The anticipation made Arthur’s pulse quicken despite himself.

His thoughts were interrupted by Elena’s exuberant shout.

“Arthur! There’s a light in the distance – the plane is on its way!” Elena was the outgoing station commander; he would miss her when she went back on the supply ship at the end of the short summer.

He grabbed his field glasses and trained them on the light in the sky, although there could be no doubt.

“Here they come!” His stomach lurched a little when he thought about the list he’d seen of incoming staff. There was one name on it that he hadn’t seen for a while. There it was, when he’d scanned it, sandwiched neatly between Freya Adams, the field logistics expert, and Mordred Dagarn, one of the incoming meteorologists.

Dr Merlin Ambrose, Zoologist, it said.

_Merlin._

Five years, it had been. Five long years, and yet, despite the chill of the ever-present Antarctic wind, the sub-zero temperatures, and the thick layers of padding on his clothing, he could still feel the blazing heat of Merlin’s birthmark. Could still hear Merlin’s near-silent gasp, see the way that his face puckered and his eyes glowed as he spent. Just the thought of it filled him with yearning, and he shook his head.

He could detect his father’s hand in this, but there was something more, something almost inevitable and fated about the renewal of their acquaintance. It was as if the stars had aligned to thrust them together, until the saga of the dragons finally played out. For the life of him he could not work out how he wanted it to end.

“All right, Arthur?” Elena’s voice brought him back to the present, swiftly followed by the dull thud of her gloved fist on his arm.

“Ouch!” he said, mock-frowning through his smile.

The twin-prop turbo plane, fancifully named Hengroen, circled the station, wings waggling slightly as it approached, battling against the relentless Antarctic wind before swooping down to the makeshift icy runway and skidding to a halt on its skis. Among the rest of the station staff, Arthur ran out to the ice almost before the propellers had stopped turning to assist the disembarking crew, and to help form a human bridge to relay the supplies onto the waiting skidoo and sledge train.

Merlin was the third off the plane. He recognised him instantly, even at a distance, even through the thick layers of identikit orange Albion Antarctic Survey clothing. There was something unmistakeable about the awkward hunch of his shoulders and cast of his limbs that drew Arthur’s gaze like a beacon. As Arthur watched, Merlin turned and looked straight at him, a flash of ocean blue, and then his eyes disappeared in a familiar blaze of crinkles that had Arthur’s own lips twisted up into a joyful grin that he just couldn’t hold back.

“Arthur? Could you give me a hand with this skidoo?” Elena was saying. “Does anyone have a spare bungee cord? I’ve used all my long ones”

“No, but I’ve got this.” Arthur turned and started unwinding a length of rope. “Would you grab that tarpaulin and drag it over the ones you’ve already secured? Bors and Owain – can you two help the pilot sort the plane out? We don’t want it getting blown away by this wind.”

“Here, Arthur, let me. Your half-hitch sucks.” Despite the fact that he hadn’t heard Merlin speak for five years, the familiarity of his voice sent a warm sense of belonging shooting through him.

“You’re a fine one to talk, Merlin.” Arthur grinned, vaguely registering that Merlin’s face was inches from his, the steam from Merlin’s breath through his balaclava clouding the air between them. “I’m not sure what they taught you at girl guides, but your bowline is shocking.”

“Oh haha.”

“Wind’s getting up,” shouted Elena, her voice growing fainter against the renewed battering of the wind in his ears. She was still helping Percy to haul packages off the plane. “Better get cracking.”

She was right. The horizon had already blurred, thick with wind-blown snow, and he could see that the encroaching squall would be on them in minutes. The ensuing white out, although not impossible to navigate through, would make their short journey back to the station difficult and hazardous. There was no time to dawdle.

Thanking his time as a climber for improving his expertise at tying knots, Arthur joined the team securing the supplies, noting with satisfaction the way that that the incomers mucked in, but, ever cautious, flitting about to check that their knots were properly dressed.

There was no room for slackers in the remote corners of the world’s last wilderness.

Merlin could feel Arthur’s eyes on him as he helped the crew to hump gear into the station’s various pods, but he didn’t know how he felt about that, so he stored that information for later use, and instead kept his hands busy with folding, stowing and tying until he was ready to drop with fatigue.

The station consisted of a series of modular spaces, elevated on legs, which allowed the encroaching snow to blow through without accumulating. Each leg rested on a giant ski, so that the whole station could be moved as the Antarctic sea ice continued its slow journey down to its grave amid the waves of the tumultuous Southern Ocean.

Right now, he was surveying the pod containing his bunk. He’d finished stowing the tagging equipment, which he’d be using to track the penguins and arctic terns, into boxes in one of the labs. The working space was tidy and well organised, which made his work efficient and swift, but he was tired after the long journey and his eyes were beginning to sting from the constant glare through the tinted windows.

“Hey! Time for a break. Here!” Elena, the station commander, who had just popped her head round the door, thrust a hot cup of sweet peppermint tea into his hand, and he took it from her gratefully. “All right?” She pushed her sun goggles up onto her forehead and waggled her eyebrows comically until he laughed. “It’s pretty full on, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“If you think this is hectic, just you wait till the supply ship gets here!” She paused, her voice turning wistful. “Mind you, it’ll be good to eat fresh potatoes again.”

“Don’t suppose there’s any chance of a biscuit?”

“It’s always the skinny ones.” She laughed. “Well, unfortunately we finished the last packet of chocolate Hob-Nobs in October, and we won’t get a new consignment till the ship gets here. But you can always chat up the chef, Gwaine. He does baking on Wednesdays. Just get a request in for your favourite cookies. The peanut butter ones are lush! But there are always some of the pink wafery biscuits. No-one seems to like those. ”

“I do! I love them!” Wrapping his still-cold hands around the mug, he inhaled the steam. “Mmm!”

“Well, you won’t starve, then!” She nodded at the mug. “It’s peppermint, I’m afraid. There’s not much in the way of fresh milk in Antarctica. Not so many cows, you see. We have a milk substitute, but most of us make do with herbal tea or coffee.”

“That’s ok. I like peppermint.” Their briefing back in Albion had covered all that, and it wasn’t as if he was a complete newbie. “I’m fine with whatever I’m given, really, as long as it’s vegetarian. I did spend a summer at Rheged station, a couple of years ago. So I know the deal.”

She nodded. “It’s a lot more remote than Rheged, here,” she said. “But I’ve a feeling you’ll fit right in.” Clapping her hand on his shoulder so hard that he winced, she pushed open the door to his room. But before she left altogether, she turned back and smiled. “Have you met your room mate yet?”

“No.” The other bunk in the tiny shared space was neatly made, with no clues as to its occupant, and all the personal belongings must have been stowed.

“I’ll send him round in a moment. He’s just unloading the scientific equipment. But I you might have met before? Didn’t you study at Camelot?”

“Oh?” Merlin swallowed, and his heart thudded.

“Yeah. Arthur Pendragon. He did his postdoc there. Do you know him?”

Oh no. He hadn’t bargained for this. He knew Arthur was here, of course. But sharing a room? The thought of the proximity was enough to raise the hairs on his already goosebumped flesh.

“Oh. Well. Erm. Yes! Actually. How funny.” He tried to moisten his lips with his suddenly dry tongue. “I do know him. Quite well.”

“Good! I’m so pleased!” A beaming smile lit up her face. “That’s why I’ve put you in the same room. It’s important to get along with your fellow overwinterers. It’s tough enough for the summer visitors! But you’ll be stuck together for over a year, cooped up in here whenever the weather comes down – which it does, with monotonous regularity, let me tell you.”

“Right.” He didn’t know how he managed to return her smile. “Good thing we’re. Erm. Friends.”

“Enjoy your tea!” She closed the door behind him, but he could still hear her footsteps and voice as she moved round the pod, chatting to the others unpacking in their rooms.

Fuck. A whole year. In a room. With Arthur. Either he’d die of sexual frustration, or his birthmark would burn him up. It was flaring now, with an ecstatic, white-hot intensity that made him shiver.

As he started to make his bed, the fresh smell of clean laundry soothed his disquiet only a little. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his hypersenses, much augmented and more under control than they used to be, and set about inserting the pillows into pillowcases and the duvet into the duvet cover with his eyes closed – a simple exercise that helped to calm him.

Then he sat on the bed in the lotus position, breathing gently in and out through his nose, slowly pushing his awareness out beyond the metal frame of the pod into the sunlight and beyond. With his eyes closed, the snow glare faded to a cool blue, and he could sense the bright sparks of consciousness that showed him the other people, all calm and purposeful as they set about stocking up the base. Among them was a familiar presence, one that set his pulse racing and his magic surging despite his best intentions.

Arthur.

Arthur was ascending the metal grill staircase outside their pod at this very moment. His footsteps in heavy boots rang out loud and clear.

Coming to himself with a gasp, Merlin blinked and let his eyes refocus. He schooled his features into a nonchalant smile before rummaging around in his bag, then lying down on his bed to read. It was impossible to concentrate, really, though, when he could hear Arthur’s laugh, and the sound of it sent his skin tingling and the heat around his birthmark rising.

The door burst open and Arthur pressed through it, tossing a large rucksack onto his bed and grinning at Merlin with that lopsided smile that made him feel simultaneously warm and cold, and damn, over the years he’d forgotten. He’d forgotten the scale of Arthur’s sheer presence, how his golden aura could just steal into the room and strike him dumb with its beauty and strength.

“Merlin,” Arthur said, holding out a hand, his voice and manner that of a man greeting an old friend, but no more than a friend. “Good to see you again.”

“And you, Arthur.” Grinning back, Merlin leaped up to shake hands, trying to ignore the way that his heart-rate quickened at their touch. “Didn’t realise you’d be my bunk-mate!”

“Well.” The sardonic tilt to Arthur’s lips grew more pronounced even as he slapped Merlin so heartily on the shoulder that it made him mock-wince almost on reflex. “There has to be somebody competent around here to make sure you don’t get into trouble. Would you like some help?”

He waved a hand at the various clothes and belongings that were strewn across Merlin’s bed, a product of the frantic rummaging that had gone on just before Arthur’s entry into the room.

“No! No, it’s all right.” Swallowing to halt the rising tide of confusion, Merlin turned and started to fold his clothes.

“Good.” Arthur stepped across to help, and the familiar teasing tone in his voice raised all the hairs on Merlin’s forearms and made his chest ache. “Spongebob Squarepants underpants, Merlin? Really?”

“They were a present. From Gwen.”

“Ah. How are Gwen and Lance? I haven’t seen them for such a long time.”

Was Merlin imagining things or could he detect a note of regret in Arthur’s voice? It was all he could do to stop himself from engaging his magic to eavesdrop on Arthur’s state of mind, but that would been both unethical and unwise, so instead he grabbed a couple of pairs of thermal longjohns and started rolling them deftly and putting them in a drawer under the bunk.

“You should come up to Camelot for a visit, Arthur,” said Merlin. “Gwen misses you. I know she does.”

Arthur was so close that Merlin could feel the warmth emanating from his sturdy shoulders when he turned and breathed, softly, into Merlin’s ear.

“And you, Merlin?” he said quietly. “Do you miss me?”

Merlin bit his lip to stop himself from blurting out something stupid, and hummed noncommittally instead.

“Mmm,” he said. “I suppose I do kind of miss having pillows thrown at my head when I bring my flatmate a cup of tea.”

Arthur huffed, the gust of his breath through Merlin’s short-cropped hair hot against his scalp.

“It’s probably just as well that I’m here,” Merlin went on, grinning, “it’s a miracle that you’ve managed all this time without the Merlin alarm clock to get you up in the mornings!”

He was already laughing when Arthur shoved his shoulder, hard, so that he went sprawling down onto his bed, letting his legs and arms flail out dramatically in a starfish shape.

“Prat!” he said through his chuckles, feeling warmth radiating from the place where Arthur had touched him.

“Idiot.”Arthur’s fond voice rather betrayed his mock frown. “What are you reading?”

“War and Peace. I figured it would last me a while.”

“Good thinking. And if the worst comes to the worst, you can use it to wedge the loo door closed when the lock’s not working!”

“Philistine!” Merlin picked up the first thing which came to hand, which happened to be a rolled up pair of thermals, and tossed them at Arthur’s head.

Catching them easily, Arthur tossed them back.

“It’s good to see you, Merlin,” he said softly, with a sweet, lopsided smile that made him look suddenly young, despite his two day beard.

The expression was so familiar that it made Merlin’s breath catch.

“You too,” said Merlin, as Arthur turned to leave the room again.

Turning as he reached the door, Arthur nodded.

“Get some rest. See you in the dining room in an hour for a safety debrief, then dinner.”

The door closed quietly behind him and the room seemed suddenly colder.

The transient summer staff had started to trickle in on the now regular plane journeys, and the station was busy preparing for the oncoming research season, but that didn’t mean there was no time for fun.

One Sunday in early December, in the lull before the arrival of the supply ships, the sun had briefly dipped below the horizon before emerging again. Arthur rose early to join Elena over breakfast, and together they called the entire population of the station – which by now was more than twenty – to a meeting in the dining room.

Gwaine and his helpers on the breakfast rota had just finished clearing away the aftermath of bacon and vegetarian sausages when Elena yelled at them to shut up, over the din of the post-breakfast chatter. The room fell silent.

“Morning everyone! Now, it’s a beautiful day, the forecast is good, and we’ve all worked really hard recently. So it’s time for an expedition to see the Happy Feet, before the sea ice retreats any further and they disappear out to sea for the summer!”

The term “Happy Feet”, in Tintagel Station vernacular, referred to a large colony of emperor penguins, some forty kilometres away.

Arthur thought he’d be blinded by way that Merlin’s face lit up at this news, and he had to look away. _Sentimental idiot!_ he thought, not sure whether he was admonishing himself or Merlin.

“We can’t all go, of course,” Elena went on. “I’ll stay behind with Percy. Sefa and Daegal have to show Kara and Mordred how to do their daily measurements out at the clean lab.”

Mordred Dagarn and Kara Sheelin were taking over from Sefa and Daegal at the clean lab. They’d be measuring daily fluctuations in various atmospheric gases. To keep the atmosphere clean, they would ski out there rather than using the skidoo, which was why it was vital for their own safety that they took their radios and that there were always two people going out to the lab each day.

“Arthur will lead the trip. Freya will sort out the trip logistics. Have a fabulous day everyone, and take some good pictures!”

Arthur, arms folded, surveyed the room with a smile as it erupted in excited chatter. The trip would be good for morale, and he was looking forward to it as much as anyone. Well, nearly anyone. He didn’t think it was possible to be quite as excited as Merlin. Merlin’s eyes were all dewy and shining as he laughed up at Gwaine, who was doing comical penguin imitations. He couldn’t help noticing Merlin’s admiring expression, and the flirtatious tilt of Gwaine’s head. Frowning, he told himself that he was merely hoping that the two of them would remember the Albion Antarctic Survey’s stern admonishments about inappropriate dalliances within overwintering teams.

Looking up for a minute, Gwaine caught his eye and grinned.

“What’s up, princess?” he said. “You look like someone put pubes in your bacon sandwich this morning.”

Arthur rolled his eyes.

“Although I wouldn’t put it past you, Gwaine, I am less worried about that than about you screwing up this expedition by frightening away the penguins with a swish of your girly hair.” He felt his mouth settle into a sour line.

“Ah come on Arthur.” Gwaine looked from Arthur to Merlin and back, and then flashed Arthur one of his knowing grins. “Ah! I get it” Strolling over, he gave Arthur’s shoulder a good-natured pat. “It’s all right, old son,” he said softly. “I’ve no desire to tread on your toes. As it were. But you might want to be careful. A year down here is a long, long time.”

“Gwaine! It’s not…” Sighing, Arthur took a swig out of his tea.

It was no good, he thought, staring ruefully at the little bits of tealeaf that were lingering at the bottom. He’d overwintered with Gwaine before, a couple of years back, as well as his old climbing friend, Leon, and the three of them had become firm friends. After the amount of time they’d spent together, it seemed that Gwaine could read him like a book.

When he looked up again, Merlin had gone.

Visiting a penguin colony was a privilege that would never grow old, and although Merlin had experience tagging gentoos and rockhoppers for his research, he had never seen emperors in their natural environment before. As the skidoo caravan slipped on past vast towers of sea-ice and driven snow, picked out in every shade of blue and white, he felt his excitement mount. They stopped frequently, because forty kilometers is a fair old way on a skidoo, and it seemed as if around every corner and crag was another extraordinary scene of such jaw-dropping beauty that it made Merlin’s spine tingle and his throat catch.

By the time they were nearing the colony, despite the months of training, Merlin’s thighs and shoulders ached. They parked the skidoos and secured them, before skiing the last kilometre, following the tracks of Freya’s skis all the way. He was hot and breathless under the heavy layers of gore-tex when they crested the final great cliff before the Antarctic ice shelf plunged away towards the sea ice.

But it was worth it. Even through ski-goggles, the scene in front of him took his breath away, and he could hear his heart thump loud in his chest. The penguins had congregated in the shelter of the vast ice cliff, which jutted over them like a friendly, blue giant. From afar, the colony looked like an irregular black smudge on the startling blue-white background.

But as they moved closer, it resolved into brownish black dots with tiny hints of gold and grey. By the time they were within a few hundred metres, he could see individual birds, hunched and shuffling awkwardly, their ungainly gait belying what he knew was their incredible grace and speed underwater.

Within a few hundred metres of the colony, a sea of dark brown, white and gold filled stretched from horizon to horizon. And the noise. The noise! After the relative quiet of Tintagel station, this vast chatter, the squawking and screeching seemed overwhelming.

“Is it always like this?" he yelled at Arthur through the din.

“I know! Amazing isn’t it!” Arthur replied, lips tilting up. “Even more spectacular when they moult. You should see them in their winter plumage!”

Turning back towards the penguins, Merlin directed his skis down the hill and gently slid down towards the colony’s edge. Which is when the smell hit him. Rotting fish, vile enough to make him gag. Breathing through his mouth, he continued his journey, but cautiously, keeping to a reasonable distance to avoid distressing the birds.

They had an important job to do while they were here; they needed to estimate the size of the colony and the breeding population, to validate the values that had been predicted by remote sensing. While Merlin and Gwaine skied round the periphery of the colony to take measurements, Freya and the others took photographs.

They also needed to ring a sample of juveniles, to track them through the short summer months ahead, when they would go off to feed in the perilous waters of the ocean. Many of them would not reach five years of age.

Subconsciously, Merlin reached out with his mind, with warmth and reassurance, to sooth the penguin babies and their squawking parents. After an aborted effort to help, Arthur and Gwaine settled to looking on from safe distance while Freya acted as a quiet backstop for the birds, ushering them towards Merlin, who cooed and clicked as he caught them with the long, steel device that had been devised for that purpose. He felt a bit like the childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

“You’re amazingly good at this,” said Freya, at one point, as another young penguin toddled off to rejoin its parents. “Elena always spent hours chasing them round on the ice. What’s your secret?”

“Magic.” Merlin smiled at her from beneath his sun goggles. “Besides which, they like my hat.”

Freya laughed. Merlin was wearing a ridiculous stripy woolly hat, pink and yellow with a green bobble and striped green and yellow plaited ear muffs. It had been hand knitted by Mithian, who was a master knitter, and was the subject of much mirth on the expedition.

 

Emperor penguins are large birds, and by the time that they had all skied back to the skidoos to compare notes, Merlin was bone tired from using his magic and traditional, old fashioned muscles to overpower them as they struggled, but enormously exhilarated by the success of his first expedition. Upon their arrival back at Tintagel, the first thing that Merlin did, after soaping down his bone-tired limbs, was to turn on his laptop, to upload his data and pictures, as well as emailing Gwen, who had been dying to hear about the penguins.

He hadn’t intended to read his email, because the growling of his stomach told him how long it had been since he had wolfed down a cereal bar on their way back, but there was one from his mother that had an importance stamp. Wondering what could be so urgent, Merlin tamped down a sudden worry and clicked on it, thinking that he just about had time to deal with whatever it was before dinner.

And then he wished that he’d waited.

She had encrypted it, which told him enough about its contents for him to know that it wasn’t just about Auntie Alice’s arthritis.

_My Darling Boy,_

_I don’t have much time but I had to tell you._

_They came looking again, today. I fear that they have discovered that one of Balinor’s notebooks is unaccounted for. They didn’t threaten me, they were very polite, but I couldn’t stop them. They searched your room, as well as his study, saying that they were investigating what had happened to him. I think I managed to put them off for now. I am so glad you have it with you; they cannot reach you there. Look after yourself and keep it safe._

_With all my love_

_Mum x_

Heart pounding, he reached under his bed for the notebook, pulling it out as if just to check that it was still there. He still hadn’t found anything in it that would tell him why the authorities were so keen to recover it, but he knew in his bones that he could not let them have it. There was something about it, some lingering sense of his father’s presence, that made him sure that it had to hold the answers, and he knew that if he handed it over, then it would be lost forever, and with it any chance of finding information about either his father or the creatures that he was lost saving.

So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he almost didn’t notice Arthur’s footsteps outside until too late. The door was already swinging inward by the time that Merlin managed to stow the notebook safely back into its hiding place. Pulse racing even faster than before, he schooled his features into what he hoped was an enquiring expression and snapped shut the lid of his laptop just as Arthur strode into the room.

“Oh! Arthur!” he said, as nonchalant as he could. “All right?”

Despite himself, he could feel the tell-tale beginning of a deep blush rise up his face, and was grateful for the mask of his growing beard.

Arthur frowned at him accusingly before hurling his still-full backpack onto his bed with a grunt.

“Fine.” He rummaged around in the bag for his laptop and sat on his bed, typing grimly.

Merlin had never thought that he could be grateful for one of Arthur’s sulky moods, but that’s certainly how he felt right then.

That evening, Arthur was curiously silent, and he excused himself after supper. Concerned at Arthur’s pallor, and also a worried that Arthur might have seen something, earlier, Merlin slipped after him, finding him hunched over a journal in the library.

“Arthur, are you joining us for the quiz? We could do with someone who knows about sports…” he peered at Arthur, trying to read him without intruding on his thoughts, and bit his lip when he saw the tense line of Arthur’s shoulders and the pained line between his eyebrows. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve got a headache.” Shaking his head, Arthur snapped closing the journal and stood to push past Merlin towards the airlock. “I’m going to bed early. Sun glare or something.”

Even without sending out any mental probes, Merlin could tell that something else was bothering Arthur. His aura, normally so bright and confident, pulsed with guilt and distress.

“Arthur, is everything all right?”

“It’s all our fault, isn’t it?” said Arthur. Tucking the journal, which Merlin could see was “Nature Climate Change”, under his arm, he placed his hand on the airlock doorhandle. “Soon all the penguin colonies will be gone, one way or another. Whether it’s because of climate change and the melting of all the sea ice, or oil exploitation, or— even the mitigation strategies that we come up with will destroy their habitats. All they want to do is eat fish and breed. Did you know that they can live for up to 50 years?”

Merlin nodded. He was a zoologist, after all.

“They’re amazing animals, and one day they’ll all be gone and we can never have them back.” Arthur’s eyes were a startling shade of blue as he regarded Merlin, his face troubled.

It was all true, and Merlin knew it. It was one of the things that he was hoping that a partnership with the dragons would fix. But he didn’t understand why Arthur felt so guilty.

“Arthur—”

“Just leave me alone, Merlin.” Arthur turned away, abruptly. “I’m not feeling sociable.”

The airlock closed behind him with a sigh, and Merlin was alone.

Alone in the room that he and Merlin shared, Arthur brooded over the article he’d been reading about the rate of retreat of the Antarctic ice shelf. It seemed that all the choices available to him would just accelerate the terrible losses that humans had started in this stunning natural wilderness. Gripped by an overwhelming sense of impotence, he opened his laptop to pen an email to Uther.

_Dear Father,_

_This is a difficult letter to write, but I have made my decision. Having spent time in the Antarctic, there is only one natural choice available to me, which is to do all that I can to preserve this extraordinary natural habitat. I will work for Pendragon Oil upon my return, but will not sanction exploration for hydrocarbons in this fragile wilderness. There must be another way for the company to grow without destroying so much that is precious and irreplaceable._

_Your ever loving son,_

_Arthur._

His finger hovered over the “send” button for a moment or two before he clicked. He turned his face to the wall and lay there, blinking, until Merlin quietly entered the room and pulled down the blackout blind.

It was after the supply ships had arrived at Christmas, when the base was crowded with summer residents and busy with the logistics of daily expeditions, that Arthur began to suspect that Merlin was hiding something.

It wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone else. Merlin was extremely adept at appearing like he couldn’t keep a secret for toffee. For example, look at the way that Merlin and Gwaine had huddled together, giggling, in dark corners of the station, for days, that time. Everyone knew they were up to something, so when Leon emerged from his room, his beard having been dyed blue while he slept, no-one was under any doubt about who was responsible.

But Arthur, well, Arthur knew Merlin. Not just that he was gay, and vegan, and was a soft-hearted, sentimental idiot who cooed over penguins and baby seals. Everyone knew those things, after all.

No, Arthur also knew that Merlin was a bit magic, that he could tell what others were feeling with more than just intuition. Knew that he could fix with a gentle touch or a quiet murmur the inevitable tensions and conflict that arose when thirty or so people were confined together. He knew that Merlin’s sideways glances and private smiles meant that he still cared for Arthur, and that knowledge filled him with a sweet warmth that he kept stored away, because he knew that he should not act on it.

Arthur knew all these things with a deep and cast iron certainty.

They never really spoke about Merlin’s magic, although from time to time Arthur would return to their room from an early morning visit to the gym, and find him meditating, eyes closed, in the lotus position on his bunk, lifting weights with only the power of his mind. The first time this had happened, Merlin had merely shrugged, when he returned to himself, and pointed out that he needed to exercise his muscles as much as the next man, it’s just that his muscles happened to be mental ones, but it would be grand if Arthur could try not to blab about it, because Merlin would rather not have to entertain everyone with magic tricks every night.

Secretly flattered that Merlin didn’t think it was a big deal to confide in him, Arthur, he hadn’t said a word about Merlin’s talents to anybody. But it did raise an important question for him: if Merlin was so good at hiding his magic, what else could he be hiding?

Which was why, from time to time, it was Arthur who would notice the subtle tells which meant that Merlin was acting all shifty about something.

So, if it wasn’t the magic that Merlin was hiding from Arthur, what was it?

Arthur was determined to find out.

His first idea was a straightforward one. He waited for a suitable evening, when the weather had come down and there was little to do but read on their bunks, while the wind howled and raised great clouds of driven snow around Tintagel in great spirals like the ghostly spirits of the departed. He softened Merlin up with conversation about the weather, and then just came out with it.

“So, Merlin,” he said.

“Mmm?” Merlin was sprawled in some strange yogic contortion, which he said was helpful for his back.

“I know your secret,” said Arthur, confidently. This tactic had always worked at school. He distinctly remembered Cedric confessing to stealing his football that time, and promising to replace it, just because he thought Arthur already knew.

But Merlin just laughed, an impressive feat at that angle.

“Oh, thank goodness,” he said. “I can take my James McAvoy poster out and put it on the wall, at last.”

To his chagrin, Arthur found himself blushing.

“Not that secret!” he said, “the other one.”

“Which other one?” Merlin returned to a sitting position, regarding Arthur with that twinkly-eyed grin that he always found so disarming, despite all his intentions, so that Arthur had to scowl on principle. “I’ve got so many!”

“Oh forget it.” Arthur lay down on his bed and picked up the most recent volume of Economic Botany.

If the direct approach wasn’t going to work, then it was time for plan B.

Subterfuge.

But Merlin was terribly hard to sneak up on. It was as if he had some kind of internal, Arthur-specific radar, which, given that Merlin could now lift up to 200kg with the power of his mind alone, was not as far-fetched as it sounded.

After that one time when Arthur quietly clicked open the door of their cabin to encounter Merlin nonchalantly shoving a dark brown, leather-bound field notebook into his battered old orange rucksack, Merlin seemed to be on guard. To be honest, Arthur wouldn’t have thought anything of it at the time if it hadn’t been for the furtive expression that flashed across Merlin’s face, as if he’d been caught stealing the last of the jaffa cakes from Gwaine’s well-hidden private stash.

In fact, the only other time that Arthur successfully managed to surprise Merlin in their cabin was when he walked in on Merlin wanking. The sight of his room mate, open-mouthed, his erect cock hard and leaking, evoked vivid memories, and was enough to give Arthur erotic dreams for weeks. Backing away with his face flaming and apologies on his lips, Arthur decided to give up for now and see if Merlin slipped up later.

And the whole summer passed so quickly, in a flurry of long days and difficult logistics to get everything done before the ice started to encroach again, that he didn’t really have time to think about it.

It lurked at the back of his mind, this nagging suspicion, but he kept it there for now. There would be time enough after the supply ships had left, when the sun was dipping ever lower on the horizon, and the population of the station had dwindled to a mere thirteen.

In the depths of the Antarctic winter, secrets had a habit of coming out.

Arthur was looking forward to winter time; there was something rather wonderful about the sense of isolation, of being on the edge of the known world, that thrilled him. Not to mention the southern lights, Aurora Australis.

Elena and the others from last year’s overwintering team were gone, departed with the supply ships and the summer researchers. Arthur liked being in charge. Elena was competent, and he respected her, but there was something about relying on himself that appealed to Arthur.

The day after the last of the planes had left, Arthur gathered the overwintering team together in the dining room for a pep talk. About half of them had overwintered before; the rest were new to the experience, and he wanted to make sure that they were all on the same page.

“Good evening everyone,” he said. “Now, I know that you’re all here for different reasons, both professional and personal. And we all have specific roles to play on Tintagel station. For example, Gwaine, here is the chef.”

“It’s a good thing he’s the chef,” called out Leon. “Otherwise someone would have strangled him by now!”

“Oi!”

“Thank you Leon. But we all depend on each other, not just to get the job done, but for our survival. Things can get tough in the Antarctic winter, we all need to be able to depend on each other. So, there are some ground rules. For example, once a week Gwaine has a day off cooking. We all take it in turns to take his place.”

“Even Leon,” drawled Gwaine, “although I’m not planning to eat much that weekend.”

“Ahem!” After the laughing had died down, Arthur carried on.

“Our internet connection is not brilliant; you can upload and download emails and pictures, but not movies or streaming media. Mithian’s in charge of communications. Look after her, she’s our window to the outside world. If she needs help with an antenna, you get out there with a ladder and don’t argue.”

Mithian bowed, to applause.

“There will be expeditions out onto the ice and into the interior. So, the first thing we’re going to do while the light is still with us is to get out and do some training. Ice climbing, crevassing, snowboarding, the lot. Follow safety procedures. Edwin, here, is a competent medic, but I’m sure he doesn’t want to be setting any broken bones.”

A hush followed that statement.

“Use the gym, stay fit, and come to me with any niggles before they become problems. I’ll schedule a one-on-one discussion with each of you every week. Use it. If anything happens to me, my deputies are Leon and Mithian. When I’m not here, their word is gospel. Any questions?”

Kara was the first to put up her hand.

“More of a comment than a question, really. Mordred and I would be happy to bring any of you out to the clean lab any time, if you’re interested in seeing what we’re doing.”

“Good idea.” Pleased with the interjection, Arthur nodded.”Everyone should get off station from time to time. Anyone else?”

“Yeah!” called Gwaine, who was ladling pizza slices onto plates. “When are you gonna stop talking and have dinner, princess?: It won’t stay hot forever you know.”

“All right, all right! Just one other thing, I need to warn you all that Gwaine’s a bit of a diva.”

“And whatever you do, don’t let him start telling puns,” added Leon.

“I resent that remark.” Gwaine pointed a pizza slice at Leon in mock anger. “For that you’re getting a slice without any pepperoni.”

 Grinning, Arthur stood up and grabbed one of the plates.

“Dinner up!”

“Come and get a pizza the action!” added Gwaine, ducking to avoid being hit by Leon’s well-aimed bread roll.

 

 

As the sun dipped ever closer to the horizon, there was more time, now, for relaxation. Arthur, for one, was relieved at the let-up in frantic activity. For a start off, he could get back to his lab work. He had a productive day checking on his samples, setting out groups of algae with various levels of exposure to the heat and light, but always careful to avoid contaminating the delicate Antarctic environment. The work was intricate and laborious, and after several hours Arthur was ready for dinner and an early sleep.

When he got back after supper, Merlin was lying on his bunk with his nose in his book, one leg draped over the other, clad in pink and white pyjamas.

“You look like a flamingo,” said Arthur, carefully stowing his notebooks and bag in his locker and extracting his laptop to type up the day’s observations. “A horizontal flamingo. A lazy one at that.”

“Mmm.” Merlin turned the page. “You look like a pompous prat.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve been working since 6 am, and still have two more hours to go.” Frowning, Arthur booted up his computer.

“Forgive me.” Merlin peered at him over the top of his book. “A tired, pompous, overworked prat with an inflated sense of self importance. Who can’t shut up. When I’m trying to read.”

Snorting, Arthur started to type, but it was dull, and baiting Merlin was more fun.

“I miss home, sometimes,” he said, conversationally, a few minutes later. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” breathed Merlin, scowling at him. “I could read without being interrupted by irritating, smug, supercilious clotpolls there, for a start.”

“Yeah? Well at least I’m not over-soft in the heart department, like certain people.” Mirth bubbled in Arthur’s throat.

“No-one could accuse you of that, Arthur!”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean? I’m beyond kind, everyone says so.”

“Not what I heard.”

“Rude bugger.”

“Inconsiderate twat.”

They could go on bickering amicably like this for several, highly satisfying hours. Chuckling, Arthur lay down, laptop on his lap, and gazed at the ceiling, listening to the occasional page turn for a few more minutes before starting the conversation again.

“Trees,” he said, wistfully. “Plants in general, and trees in particular.”

“Hmm?”

“I miss them. I am a botanist, you know.”

“I hadn’t thought about that.” Merlin’s voice was warm. “A botanist cut off from his plants. That must be hard for you.”

“Yeah.” Arthur felt his mouth turn down and realised that it was true. “What about you, Merlin? What do you miss about home?”

There was a moment of silence, and he turned over to look at Merlin who was sitting up, staring back at him.

“Flying, I suppose…” Merlin said.

“Flying? You?” A vision of Merlin, still in pink pyjamas, joining a flock of genuine flamingoes suddenly sprang, unbidden into Arthur’s brain, and he chuckled. “That I would like to see!”

“Don’t be daft! I mean…” Chewing his lip, Merlin looked to one side. “I mean birds. I miss birds.”

“Mmm.” Arthur was puzzled. Merlin looked curiously shifty. “I suppose I understand that. You being somewhat of a bird man, yourself, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Merlin turned his back, so that Arthur could see the bony protuberances of his shoulder blades poking out through his pyjama top.

It seemed to be the end of the conversation, so Arthur looked back at his laptop with a sigh, wondering what had just happened.

It wasn’t as if Arthur hadn’t been expecting the email from his father, but his heart was heavy when he opened it nonetheless.

_Dear Arthur_

_I was disappointed but unfortunately not surprised by your irrational decision to throw away your inheritance. It is clear that the wrongheaded liberals who dominate the Albion Antarctic Survey have influenced you. In your heart of hearts you must understand that the future of the world’s energy supply and therefore its economy rests on exploiting new reserves in a politically stable location, or there will be terrible consequences on an unimaginable scale. War, famine and destruction will surely follow if we fail._

_For the time being, I have no objection to you seeking some method for sequestering carbon with your research into algae. However, I expect you to take up your duties upon your return to Albion._

_In the meantime, do not forget the main focus of your mission. It is imperative that you gain the trust of Balinor Ambrose’s son. He is hiding vital information._

_Your ever loving ,_

_Father_

If Arthur had thought that his heart lay heavy in his chest before, it felt like it was made of lead now. Of course he wanted to gain Merlin’s trust. He wanted it with every fibre of his being. Surely he should welcome doing so with his father’s sanction? So why did the fact that his father had told him to worm his way into Merlin’s confidence make him feel sick to the stomach?

Rather than answer his father, he closed down his laptop with a scowl, and shoved it into the alcove where he normally kept it. Then he grabbed his gym bag and made his way through the gantry that joined their accommodation to one that contained the main communal areas, hoping to work off his frustration there.

There was traditionally a celebration at Tintagel station to mark the onset of winter. Casting aside his unease, Arthur threw himself into organising the affair. Gwaine created a magnificent cake in the shape of a penguin, complete with vegan marzipan and icing. Merlin and Mithian were giggling over something, he didn’t dare to ask what, and Mordred and Kara made home-made bunting out of left-over computer paper.

Leon produced some homebrew, which looked dangerous but everyone seemed keen, or reckless, enough to give it a try. The party was formally declared open when Freya shyly unveiled a magnificent ice sculpture that she’d hewn from a block of pack ice from out near the clean lab.

Much later on, Gwaine was half way through an extremely elaborate and tasteless joke involving two tomatoes and a large cucumber when the source of Merlin’s giggles and sidelong glances with Mithian abruptly became clear. The homebrew had been flowing freely, faces were flushed and eyes were bright.

Abruptly, Percy, Elyan and Leon burst into the dining room wearing pink wigs made from Mithian’s wool, each of them carrying a ukulele. They walked over to Arthur, then knelt at his feet in a weird pink semicircle, while the rest of the residents broke out into raucous laughter. Merlin, the bastard, had tears in his eyes. The men plucked at the strings to tune them, then Elyan and Leon started to strum, humming “wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh…” while Percy sang in a high, but tuneful falsetto.

“In the Arctic, the frozen Arctic, Pendragon sleeps tonight!” he sang. “In the Antarctic, the magnificent Antarctic, Pendragon sleeps tonight…! Ah Ee-e-e-oh-mum-oh-weh...” 

Arthur felt his face flaming, even as he started to laugh helplessly at the sheer absurdity of it all, as everyone else joined in.

 

 

 

On the day when the sun dipped below the horizon for the first time, Merlin let down his guard.

Merlin had always commemorated the anniversary of Will’s death, and although he was now as far from civilization as it was possible to be whilst still inhabiting the same planet, he would not have felt comfortable if he hadn’t marked it in some way. So, as the sun’s glare dimmed to a soft yellow haze and the strips of cloud faded from white to gold and then to a deep smudgy orange, Merlin stood on the observation deck, his eyes closed, hands outstretched.

“I miss you, Will, you daft old bugger,” he said. “I’ll never forget you.”

He breathed into his hands and released a solitary butterfly, not a living thing, such a creature would never survive in this frigid wilderland, but instead a thing forged of thought and memory, and it floated into the thin, cold air. He stood watching it dwindle to a speck, like a tiny blue spark of hope.

 

  
 

 

That’s where Arthur found him, half an hour later. The sun was already up and bright, but Merlin stood still as a statue. The idiot was out there with no gloves on, in a howling gale, and Arthur could see that he was shaking. Did he have no sense of self preservation? If he had frostbite already, how would he survive six long months of darkness? He could lose a finger.

Arthur strode across, his harsh admonishments swallowed first by the greedy wind, cold enough to steal away his breath, and then by the tragic set of Merlin’s features.

“You’re an idiot, Merlin,” he said, instead, not sure what was troubling him. Sighing, raising clouds as he exhaled, he reached for Merlin’s hands. “You’ll get hypothermia out here in this.”

Merlin started, as if unaware that Arthur was there, and, blinking, flashed him a mirthless smile.

“I’m okay, Arthur,” he said, and Arthur couldn’t tell if the tears in his eyes were because of the wind or some other sentiment that had dragged the idiot up here at dawn. Merlin clasped Arthur’s hands, and to his shock Arthur found that they were hot to the touch. Before he could start worrying that Merlin might be developing a fever, Merlin added “It’s the magic, you know. It keeps me warm. Trust me, I’m fine.”

“You were shivering.”

Some of the worry must have leaked out of Arthur’s expression, because Merlin rolled his eyes.

“I’m not completely stupid you know.”

“I do wonder, sometimes,” huffed Arthur, not releasing Merlin’s hands.

Merlin smiled at him, but his eyes remained sad.

“Will died, seven years ago today,” he said. 

“I’m sorry,” said Arthur, for want of anything better to say.

“He died to bring me something. Something that we both thought was important. I sometimes think that I’m no closer to understanding it than I was all those years ago. And I feel so alone.”

“Then maybe it is time you trusted someone else to help you,” said Arthur, softly, not daring to think that it might be him, not knowing how he’d feel if it was.

Merlin held on to Arthur’s hands as if they were a lifeline. His eyes were the colour of the Southern Ocean, a dark and fathomless blue in the pale grey dawn.

“Maybe it is,” he said.

 

 

A disinterested observer might have noticed, as the two men turned to descend from the deck into the airlock, another figure detach itself from behind the dormant row of barbecues, with eyes trained on their retreating backs.

 

 

It didn’t take long to get back to the pod containing their cabin, in awkward silence. Arthur wasn’t sure about this any more. He wanted to help Merlin, that was true, but he was worried that he might not like what he discovered. It was a difficult choice, but as Merlin rummaged under his bed, Arthur realised that it was too late. The choice had already been made.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected – some sort of magical artifact, perhaps, or a photograph, but a battered old field notebook was probably not it.

Arthur’s eyes were drawn to the loving way that Merlin’s fingers caressed the book’s leather bindings before gently opening it to the marked page.

“Here,” he said. “This is what… I’ve always thought that maybe Will died because he was bringing me this. He took it from my mum’s house. It was a risk; they were downstairs, searching and shouting, and he hid it in his pants.” Merlin’s sigh was half smile, half sob. “Classic Will. He pretended he was in the loo. He had already been stabbed by the time that he found me. He didn’t know how dangerous it was, only that I cared about it. It’s my father’s last field notebook, you see.”

“Your father?”

“Yeah. I… He didn’t even know I…” Merlin’s eyes glittered before he looked down at his hands, still holding the notebook. “He found some dragon eggs. Two years before he… And he was coming back, to see if they were still there. I’m sure he found them again, I’m sure of it, but I have no idea where, nor what happened to him. All the records of the expedition have disappeared, even the ones my mum had are gone. Someone’s deleted them all and I can’t find it in here. It’s as if he never existed.”

“I’m sorry.” Arthur crossed the room and patted Merlin’s shoulder awkwardly.

“Yeah. Well. I have been searching for clues in it, It must contain the answer somehow, but I just can’t put my finger on it. Maybe a fresh set of eyes will help?”

Swallowing down the lump that appeared in his throat when he understood the trust that Merlin was putting in him, Arthur nodded and took the notebook from him, reading it avidly as it described the minutiae of the ill-fated expedition, and taking in its last, poignant words with a frown.

“It doesn’t have the location co-ordinates for the last day. Here. All the entries give you the location co-ordinates, but not this one.” Arthur turned the book over in his hands, staring at it as if willing it to release its answers. “It’s an interesting thing, this. It’s a bit like a Moleskine, but the leather is much thicker. Normally, notebooks like this – they have a secret pocket at the back, that you can shove loose bits of paper in. This one doesn’t seem to have one, but…” Arthur peered at the endpiece of the book, probing it with his fingers, and with that he had his answer. “Aha!”

When Merlin looked up at him, his eyes were so full of trust and hope that Arthur couldn’t speak for a moment. But then he knew what he had to do.

“Merlin,” he said softly, handing back the notebook that could help him with his mission, but only at the expense of his friend’s hopes and dreams. “Merlin, there’s something here.”

“What?” Sunlight filtering through the blinds lit Merlin’s face up for a second, picking out the hollow of his cheekbones and the stormy blue of his eyes.

“There’s a secret compartment.” Excitement mingled with dread in Arthur’s chest. This must be it. The information that Merlin had, the information his father had told him to seek.

Sitting, Merlin held out the book, closing his eyes for a second. Arthur sat on the bunk opposite, watching. Abruptly, Arthur realised that he could sense something warm stealing through him, banishing all his earlier uncertainties with a caress, and leaving a feeling of peace and contentment. He wondered, then if that could be Merlin’s magic, and he watched fascinated as Merlin’s eyes burned bright blue, then flashed a vivid gold.

“Oh God, you’re right, Arthur!” Merlin’s voice shook with excitement. “I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.”

The stitching along the notebook’s binding unravelled and a tightly folded piece of paper fell out onto Merlin’s lap. As Arthur watched, Merlin grabbed it and gently unfolded it with shaking hands.

With a swift movement, Arthur crossed the room to sit next to Merlin, peering at the paper, trying to ignore the way that heat seeped through his clothing where their shoulders touched.

Merlin’s whole body was quivering, his fingers clumsy.

“You do it.” With an exasperated tut, he passed the paper over to Arthur. “I’m afraid that I’ll tear it.”

Swallowing down his dismay that Merlin should entrust this to him, Arthur carefully unfolded what turned out to be an old photograph. Three figures stood smiling, deep within a spectacular ice cave. One of them was pointing to what appeared to be a mound of huge eggs at their feet, while the others smiled at the camera. To his shock, Arthur recognised one of the figures, and his heart began to beat faster.

 

 

“That’s my father,” he blurted out. “Why would your dad’s field notebooks have a picture of my father in it?”

Merlin gazed at him dumbly.

“Looks like they knew one another,” he said. “Your dad and mine. I didn’t know your father had been to Antarctica… they must have been on the same expedition.”

“Who’s the woman?”

“I don’t recognise her,” said Merlin, turning the photo over. “Wait! There’s writing on the back.” He was breathing heavily, as well he might at this startling new clue about his father’s fate. “Can you read it? I… I can’t.”

Arthur realised that Merlin’s eyes were glistening, ripe with unshed tears, and his face was tense. Glancing wordlessly down at the photograph, a moment later Arthur felt the same way.

“Arthur?”

“It… “ Arthur couldn’t speak. “Naomi Sidlin,” he croaked out eventually, as he handed back the photo. He stood up to walk around the room so that his face was hidden. “Dr Naomi Sidlin is the person in the picture.” his voice sounded deep and gruff even to himself, and he coughed to clear his throat.

Frowning, Merlin stared at the back of the picture, and Merlin’s sharp exhale was almost an exclamation.

”That’s not Naomi Sidlin, Arthur. Her name’s Nimueh Síodh Linn. Oh my God. Arthur? What’s the matter? Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shakily. “I don’t know her. But…” he couldn’t carry on. His fingers trembled as he fiddled with the blinds to the tiny window. Outside, the horizon blurred as the wind whipped snow up against the thick plastic.

Merlin must have regained his composure enough to read the rest of the lettering.

“Shit,” he said. “Ygraine? Wasn’t that your mother’s name? Arthur? I didn’t know your mother was a photographer!”

Arthur pressed his hot forehead against the cool pane.

“Yeah,” he breathed. He’d known that about her, of course, but not that she’d been the official photographer on this expedition. How could his father have kept this from him? Why did he cover it up? Given what else he was expecting Arthur to do, he thought he might have mentioned it. The whole deception was so enormous that he couldn’t begin to work it out. “I didn’t…”

He watched his breath fog the patch window and rubbed out a patch of clarity, which soon fogged up again, like his scattered thoughts. He couldn’t make sense of it.

“I didn’t know that she came here. They all look so happy together. What happened?” He spoke carefully, his throat feeling thick, as if clogged with tar.

“There are coordinates, here, on the photograph, as well. Arthur, we could look for the clutch. Arthur? Arthur?” Excitement made Merlin’s voice tremble.

But Arthur couldn’t speak, unable to swallow away the lump that was growing in his throat. So wrapped up in his thoughts was he, that he didn’t notice Merlin crossing the room until warm hands were turning him round and a pair of concerned blue eyes gazed searchingly into his.

“Arthur? We’ll work it out, Arthur,” Merlin said softly, his face full of compassion. “We’ll find the clutch, and we’ll find out what happened. We’ll work it all out, and we’ll fix it, you and me.”

His voice was so full of confidence and hope that for a moment Arthur almost believed him.

His lips parted to speak.

And then Merlin kissed him, and the world turned upside down.

By tacit agreement, Wednesday night was ladies’ night at the gym, for which Kara was eternally grateful.

It hadn’t started out like that. They’d had to fight for it.

Mithian had mentioned to Arthur at dinner one evening that the women might appreciate one evening a week to themselves.He had frowned and pursed his lips in that petulant way that he had.

“Why?” he said, pausing with a fork full of sausage halfway to his mouth.

Chewing at a mouthful of peas, Mithian shrugged and then swallowed.

“The atmosphere can get a bit testosterone-fuelled sometimes.” She waved her knife around vaguely at the table, which included Gwaine and Merlin as well as Kara and Freya. “You know. It can be a bit of a sausage fest in there.” She bit the end off her sausage as if to emphasise her words.

Arthur winced.

“What she means, is, that sometimes, just sometimes,” added Kara, who wasn’t renowned for her tact, “It would be nice to work out without having to listen to you sweaty lummoxes grunting and farting like warthogs, and without having to breath in the fumes from your over-ripe armpits.”

“It’s only one night a week.” That was Freya, ever the diplomat.

“Plus,” Kara added, “That lecherous bugger, Gwaine keeps ogling my bum whenever I do squats. It’s not good for my concentration.”

“You love it really,” leered Gwaine.

“Trust me,” said Mithian, “We really don’t.”

Gwaine clutched at his heart as if wounded.

“She’s got a point, you know, Arthur,” said Merlin. “It is like being in a room full of neanderthals. And even I get sick of the football talk.”

“Thank you, Merlin!” Kara flashed him a smile.

Arthur grunted.

“All right. I see your point. I’ll talk to them about it.”

Arthur wasn’t so bad, really. Merlin, she couldn’t really fathom.

Gwaine, of course, was a brute, pure and simple. But she had to concede that he was a decent cook.

“I’ll take that for you, shall I, princess?” he was saying now to Arthur, grinning as he retrieved his plate. “Before you work a hole in your plate with your fork. I mean, I knew you liked sausages, but three in your cake-hole at once is a lot, even for you.”

Gwaine being Gwaine, he had to turn this innocent-seeming remark into a vile innuendo with a leer and a wink. No-one could blame Kara for the way she rolled her eyes – across the table she could see Mithian doing the same.

Arthur punched him in the arm, but without heat.

“Twat,” he said. “That was poor, Gwaine, even for you. I’m beginning to wonder if I could have a separate “non-Gwaine” night in the gym myself. To spare my poor brain from the food-related innuendo.”

After that, the evening descended into banter.

It had taken a week or two before the message filtered through to the others. To his credit, it wasn’t Gwaine who kept coming along to the gym on Wednesdays. No, it was Leon, and Percy, which she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by. It must take a lot of practice to maintain arms and legs like the trunks of mature oak trees.

“Don’t mind us, ladies,” said Leon with a grin. “Just pretend we’re not here.” He headed over to the bench and started to lace his shoes.

The three women exchanged frowns.

“Do something!” Kara mouthed at Mithian.

“What?” Mithian mouthed back.

They were both shocked when it was the normally quiet Freya who came to the rescue.

Percy was just reaching the crest of an admittedly impressive lat pull-down when she spoke.

“So, ladies, as we were saying,” said Freya. “The worst bit about chucking your tampons in the waste and carting it all away each summer is that I can’t help imagining them freezing. They’d end up like those multi-coloured ice lollies, don’t you think?”

Kara was a hundred per cent sure that wasn’t what they’d been saying, but when there was a loud curse from the direction of the bench, she grinned. Genius. Freya was an actual genius. She could hug her.

“Yeah,” she said. “The string thing must freeze solid in these temperatures. You could probably hold it upright by it, like a lolly stick?”

“Ow!” There was a heavy crash, as Percival dropped the weights.

“Health and safety, Perce,” said Freya, smugly. She settled onto the cross-trainer and pressed some buttons. “And then, If you were having a really heavy one they’d be red all the way up,” she added conversationally as she started to step. “They’d be like raspberry ice lollies.”

Leon’s step faltered on the treadmill and he pressed some buttons, fumbling hastily to plug in his earphones.

It had taken Mithian a moment or two to cotton on, but this evidence of male panic obviously must have added her own thoughts.

“Sometimes there would be gristly lumps,” she added, with a glance towards where Leon, face aflame, was desperately scrabbling to get his earphones on. “I suppose they’d look just like raspberries. Dark, blackish-red, slimy ones. Or blobs of jelly.”

“Ooh! Dr Dres! Can I have a listen?” Dancing over to Leon’s treadmill, Kara swiped the earphones, gleefully.

“No! I mean. Oh, all right. But…” Leon hit the red “STOP” button on the running machine, and stepped off it. “Erm. Perce?”

“I don’t have that problem,” said Kara, glaring at Leon. “An advantage of having polycystic ovaries is that my periods are quite light.” She put the headphones on over her ears. “Ooooh, Leon. Abba! Who’d have thought it?” It was very loud, so she pulled them off again, deliberately dislodging them from the socket and not passing them back. “Oops!”

“Well, that sucks for you. The whole polycystic thing,” said Freya.

“It’s not so bad.” Kara shrugged. “It’s worth it in a way. I don’t use contraception, really. The chances of me getting pregnant are pretty much vanishingly small. I only need condoms as a precaution, you know, if I’m having casual hook up. And I only have a couple of days of light pink, then I’m ok.”

“Lucky you. I have really heavy ones. It’s as if I turn into a monster or something when I’m on. I’m even worse than Kara before she’s had her morning coffee.”

“That can’t be possible,” said Mithian. “No-one’s that grumpy.”

“Ok, maybe not quite that bad.”

“Oi!” said Kara, although she knew it was partly true. “I resent that remark. I am not grumpy before coffee, merely respectfully silent.”

“Oh, come off it, Kar,” said Mithian. You’re like a walking thunderstorm before you’ve had your coffee. Even Percy’s afraid of you. And then when you do drink it, you look like you want to dive in and swim round the mug.”

“Anyway, as I was saying. The worst thing about periods,” added Freya conversationally, increasing her pace as the cross-trainer swished rhythmically. “The very worst is when it’s your first day. And you feel like your uterus is clenching so hard it is trying to shove itself right out of your fanny.”

“Right. Erm. I think I’ll come back later. C’mon, Perce.” Leon was looking frantic as he stuffed his hoodie back into his bag.

“Mmm?” Percy was already picking up his kit.

“All right, ladies,” Leon said, smiling wryly. “We know when we’re beaten.”

The three women chuckled at the closing airlock door and exchanged high-fives.

“You realise that we’ve confirmed all their sexist biases about women only talking about periods, and men, and shopping, when they’re on their own?” said Kara.

“Who would have thought they were such delicate little flowers?” said Mithian, sitting up to take a break from her press-ups.

“I don’t give a shit what they think,” Freya replied. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a result. And that’s all I care about.”

“Agreed,” said Mithian, grinning. “Now, what do you say about doing circuits now the room’s quiet?”

Kara beamed. She loved these women.

“Brilliant,” she said.

 

Arthur stepped back. He wasn’t sure what to do with the kiss, it awakened such chaotic feelings that he didn’t have time to make sense of them all.

“Sorry?” breathed Merlin, his breath gusting across Arthur’s face like a caress. He didn’t sound sorry at all. And then suddenly his arms were around Arthur, velvety lips were pressed to Arthur’s mouth, and Arthur found himself kissing back with an urgency that hinted at desperation. Merlin’s lips were as soft as he had remembered, and the muscles of his arse as hard.

It was the memory as much as anything else that made him groan into Merlin’s mouth, and manhandle him roughly towards his bunk.

When he toppling backwards, sprawling on top of his covers, Merlin didn’t release his grip, and losing his balance Arthur fell onto him, still kissing all the while, frantic hands scrabbling at Merlin’s clothes. A nagging voice at the back of his mind was shrieking at him to stop, but it might as well not have bothered. It was inevitable, this thing between them, and he couldn’t fight it, not any more.

Merlin seemed just as bad. Arthur could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest, it matched the erratic thumping of his own heart, as Merlin tugged Arthur’s t-shirt free of his trousers, and slipped his hand beneath the the waistband with a whimper. But it was only when Merlin shifted his hips so that the hard line of his cock pressed against Arthur’s answering arousal that Arthur really knew that there was no turning back, and the nagging voice disappeared completely, drowned by the cascade of lust that flooded through him.

It was different, this time, from when they had been together as young men. When at last they were naked and Arthur eased into Merlin, the tiny gasp that this drew from him was nothing compared to his loud cries on that fateful night, years ago, but it made Arthur’s heart swell as his free hand curled possessively around Merlin’s cock.

Afterwards, they lay together on Merlin’s bed with their skin cooling and their hearts settling, that was when Arthur’s worries started to plague him again.

 

 

“I can’t work it out,” said Arthur, frustrated, as he pulled at his hair.

Merlin gazed at him, trust in his eyes.

“Let’s jot it down,” he said. He leaned across the bedside table for a sheet of paper. “I always find it easier if I can work it out with a pencil.”

“That reminds me of the joke about the mathematician who had constipation,” said Arthur.

“Oh ha ha.” Merlin punched his naked arm. “You’ve been spending too much time around Gwaine.”

“Ow!”

They were lying together on Arthur’s bed, wearing only their boxer shorts, while all about the cabin the wind howled. On nights like this the eerie sound of the whirling winds whistled round their cabin, as if eldritch creatures had surrounded them and were wailing their banshee calls of death and despair. On such nights, thought Arthur, a man should not be alone. It was good to nestle instead in each other’s arms, whispering warm assurances to banish the infinite cold.

“So,” said Merlin, “the summer expedition your father and your mother were on with Balinor and this Nimueh person was, as far as I can tell, in 1984, the year you were born. You must have been conceived just after they got back to Albion. I was born later, in August 1986.” He wrote down “Jan 1984: Expedition. Xmas 1984: Arthur b”, and then, two lines under it, “Jan 1986, Expedition, Balinor. Merlin b”

“But that doesn’t make sense, Merlin. Father always said—” Arthur had to bite his lip to stop himself from giving too much away.

Merlin sighed, drawing little circles with his pencil.

“My father disappeared in February 1986,” he said, doodling tiny dragons around his own name. “My mother was already pregnant. He never knew. Mum always said… she always said that the dragons cured his infertility and that I was dragonborn.” He drew a circle around his name, and wrote “Dragonborn” down next to it. “After he came back from that expedition, it only took them a few months to conceive.”

“What does that even mean?” said Arthur, frustrated.

The spiralling movement of his pencil was somehow comforting as Arthur watched it, but it couldn’t counter the rising tide of dread that threatened to overwhelm him.

Arthur couldn’t watch Merlin’s pencil any more. Standing, leaving the suddenly suffocating warmth, he struggled into his undershirt, fleece and warm trousers, and grabbed his gym bag. “I’ll be back later,” he said. “I need to go away and think.”

Merlin’s eyes were sad, but understanding, as he watched.

“Don’t forget that it’s ladies’ night,” he said.

Damn.

Arthur reached the door and looked back as he swallowed. “I’ll ask nicely,” he said.

 

Mordred’s face was intent, his eyes narrow and lips drawn together in an icy rage.

Merlin tried to scream, but he was paralysed, pinned by some unseen force that left him impotent, immobile.

There was cold. Biting cold. A penetrating cold that swept through him and left him frozen and brittle. And darkness. A terrible, gnawing darkness that hinted of coming loss and made his chest ache. And fear. Not the exhilarating sort, not excitement or thrill, but the kind of strength-sapping fear that made his legs collapse beneath him with the weight of it.

“Arthur!” he tried to scream, but his voice was no more than a hoarse whimper, and his face wouldn’t move.

Arthur turned, but it was too late. Mordred’s lithe body went crashing into him, and the two figures hurtled over the edge of the crevasse and plunged, wheeling into its icy depths.

The loss was like a physical blow. It felt like Merlin’s soul was being ripped from his body. Whatever had held him was released, and he ran, screaming, to the chasm, but it was too late.

“No!” he yelled, again, kicking at a lump of snow. “No!”

Something hot and blunt jabbed insistently at his nose.

“Wake up Merlin,” hissed a familiar-sounding vexed whisper. “You’re kicking me! And stop yelling, you idiot. You’ll wake the whole accommodation block! Walls aren’t that thick.”

Blinking, Merlin realised that his arms were wrapped around something warm and firm, and a slightly hairy pair of feet were jammed hard up against his face. He had no covers on, which might account for the chill, but not for the nausea nor the way his dragon birthmark was flaring up under his skin. It only normally did that when his magic was panicky and uncontrolled. Shivering, Merlin realised that it was no ordinary nightmare, but had some element of precognition in it.

“Arthur?” he muttered, reluctant to move, still shaky from the nightmare. “You okay?”

“Yeah, idiot. Apart from the fact that someone’s been murdering my sleep by clinging to my legs and yelling at my feet. I thought we agreed separate beds? Its not like they’re very big.”

Merlin’s face felt so hot that he wondered if it was lighting up the whole cabin. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Nightmare.”

“S’alright,” said Arthur. “Always knew you were a girl.” He nudged Merlin’s face with his feet again. “I don’t have a dummy handy but you could suck one of my toes if you wanted.”

“You’re a sick bastard, you know,” said Merlin, voice a little shaky, finally tearing himself away and plodding wearily back to his own bunk, where he lay, trembling into the dark. It was cold, his pillow was damp, and with a shock he realised that his face was wet.

Soon the gentle snores from the other side of the room alerted him to the fact that Arthur was not enormously disturbed by the incident. But as for Merlin, well. Merlin lay wide awake for the rest of the night, wondering what it could all mean.

Someone had been watching them, over the last few days. Watching them and following them. Several times recently he’d heard something or felt eyes on him. He wasn’t sure, he might just be imagining things, but he thought it might be Mordred. All his intuition was telling him, screaming at him, Mordred is dangerous!

But he didn’t know why.

 

“Ever think about that night, years ago, when Gwen dumped me?” Arthur said. “And that pact that we had?”

They were crammed together in Merlin’s too-narrow bunk, sweat cooling on their skin. Merlin shifted his weight so that he was gazing at Arthur, his eyes a fathomless blue.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Do you?”

“Mmm,” Arthur replied, noncommittal. _All the time,_ an inner voice admitted.  _The night that changed me forever_.

Merlin’s fingers were so long, so elegant. Arthur watched, fascinated, as they glided across his bare chest and came to rest on his hip.

“I have kept my promise, you know,” Merlin added.

“Your promise?”

Merlin’s eyes were still on his as he nodded.

“I don’t have sex with people I don’t know, not any more. In fact…” He bit his lip, as if he had been intending to say something else, but had changed his mind.

“In fact, what?” Arthur wondered if Merlin could feel the way that his heart was beginning to race.

“In fact, I haven’t… something changed, with you.” Merlin sighed. “I haven’t had sex since. Until now, that is, with you, Arthur.”

“What? Five years, Merlin. It’s been five years.” Arthur’s chest was hurting. He didn’t need this kind of pressure. He tried to ignore the annoying voice in his head. _You haven’t, either,_ it nagged. _Something changed, in you as well._

Merlin looked surprised at Arthur’s crabby response. He was probably expecting Arthur to make some sort of arrogant quip about Merlin being a girl. But Arthur wasn’t feeling playful, all of a sudden. Struggling out from under Merlin’s arm, he started to pull on his clothes

“I hoped. Knew. Knew we’d meet again. And I wanted to be worthy of you,” Merlin whispered. Arthur felt his heart sink further with every word. “Not the fucked up kid you knew who would shag anything that moved. So I stopped.”

“Oh.” Arthur could still see Merlin’s eyes, glittering in the pale electric light, and their scrutiny made him shiver, suddenly self-conscious. “Good for you.”

“I’m yours, Arthur. If you want me.”

“And do I have any choice in this?” His voice sounded cold and distant, even to himself. He had to turn his eyes away from Merlin’s face, from the hurt that he read there.

“Of course.” Merlin’s voice was faint. “I thought we had a connection, but maybe I…”

“You must have been mistaken.” Arthur turned his face to the wall. He should not have been so weak. He should not have given in to the burning need that even now surged in his chest, making his throat ache and his head throb. It wasn’t right. It was unfair on Merlin, their missions were in opposition. This kind of complication would only make this worse when the time came. “I… I don’t think we should do this again. It was just casual. That’s all. I’m sorry, Merlin. I do hope this isn’t going to be awkward.”

Arthur deliberately slowed his breathing, to feign sleep, and tried to ignore the way Merlin’s uneven breathing betrayed his pain.

 

Merlin had been looking forward to this expedition out to the Happy Feet. By April the penguins had returned to the colony to mate, and Merlin needed to find the penguins he had tagged at the beginning of the summer foraging season.

The fact that Arthur had stayed behind on station was a big relief. Arthur’s behaviour had been odd, sometimes hurtful, recently. Maybe some distance would help to settle the misery that threatened to overwhelm him in quiet moments when Arthur came into the room.

The days were getting very short, but the sun lingered just below the horizon for hours, filling the sky with a luminous glow that reflected off the ice and gave it a surreal hue. The daylight hours, such as they were, were incredibly busy as they searched for radio signals.

When he returned to their orange Albion Antarctic Survey standard issue thermal teepee – steep-sided and conical, to avoid it getting laden with snow overnight – Freya eyed him strangely.

“How come you managed to collect three times as many penguin tags as Percy and I put together?” she said, frowning as if trying to make something out.

“Magic,” he said, with a manic grin that he knew made people disbelieve his words. But Freya didn’t roll her eyes, as most people did. She stared at him instead, and then flashed him a triumphant smile.

“I knew it!” she said. “I knew there was something about you!”

Percy appeared from the other side of the tent, at that point, stowing his camera into the bag.

“Something about Merlin?” he said.

“Er – nothing,” said Merlin, hastily. “Freya was just congratulating me on being able to collect tags faster than you two lazy lubbers.”

“Cheeky devil,” said Perce, grinning widely.

They sat for a moment or two in companionable silence as the spectacular glow of the sky grew gradually fainter.

“Glorious sunset, tonight,” said Merlin, wistfully. “Shame Arthur isn’t here. I mean,” he said, hastily seeking to clarify, so that the others wouldn’t jump to conclusions. “I mean he takes amazing sunset photographs. His mum was a photographer, you know.”

“I suppose he does?” Freya was looking at him curiously again, her head tilted to one side, and he blushed under her scrutiny, the heat spreading from his neck to the tips of his ears. She was too perceptive by half. “But, you know, Percy’s pretty good too.”

“Yeah. And at least Percy’s polite. You know. He wouldn’t make any sarcastic comments about me being a sentimental idiot, or…” Merlin trailed off with a sigh and swallowed. “So. Yeah, far better to have Percy out here.”

“Cheers, mate,” said Percy, unzipping the tent. “I’m going to turn in. Anyone coming?”

“We should both come in.” Freya put her hand over Merlin’s, and her eyes, black and wide in the gloaming, were far too perceptive. “The weather’s not bad today, but let’s not get blasé.”

In the morning, Percy went off to circumnavigate the colony, while Freya and Merlin took the camp down.

“So,” said Freya, softly. She was stowing their sleeping bags on the trailers while Merlin started stacking the tent-poles ready for stowing the teepee. “What is it with you and Arthur, then?”

“There’s a history there, I suppose.” He shrugged, surprised at himself for admitting as much. But Freya was so kind, he couldn’t imagine her gossiping. He trusted her. “And it’s made things rather difficult. I don’t… I don’t even think he likes me, any more. Whereas I…”

“You still care for him.” It wasn’t a question. Freya seemed to know him all too well.

“Yeah. Yeah, I really do. I can’t help it,” Merlin admitted. “And sometimes I think he… but…”

She nodded.

“He cares for you, Merlin,” she said. “He watches you. He watches you all the time. I’ve seen him looking at you, sometimes, with such longing. And then sometimes – sometimes he looks almost grief stricken. And when you’re not there, he’s so tense, on edge, all snappy… when you come in the room, his whole body relaxes, it’s like he can’t be himself without you. I think he’s having a tough time, Merlin.”

“In that case, why is he behaving like such a dick?” Frustrated, Merlin started shoving the tent into the bag all wrong.

“You’ll rip it.” Freya stopped him and pulled it out again, folding it methodically before stowing it, making it look easy. “I don’t know what’s bothering him, Merlin, but whatever it is, it’s not that he doesn’t like you, I’m sure of that.”

“Seven hundred and fifty metres!” said Percy, skiing up to them, and coming to an abrupt halt in a shower of snow spray, and checking the speed-and-distance monitor on his wrist. “Apart from a few strays, that is.”

 

 

“Right. The weather forecast is fine, for once. Anyone fancy coming out on a snowboarding trip?” Arthur strode into breakfast, his hair sleek and golden, expression intent. It never failed to make Merlin’s pulse race and his birthmark flare hot, seeing Arthur like this, and sometimes he just had to look away to tamp down the regret. “We’ve got a few hours of daylight. Lots of fresh snow.”

They’d fashioned a makeshift obstacle course for the snowboarders, which was normally a pretty popular option when people didn’t have too much work to do.

“You bet!” Mordred’s expression was as eager and excited as that of a puppy being invited to come out on a walk. But then his face fell. “But I’ve got to take measurements with Kara out at the clean lab.”

“I’ll go with Kara,” said Leon. “I’ve still got a sore knee from last time we went out boarding.”

“Okay. So it’s me and Mordred, so far. Anyone else?” Arthur looked around, expectantly.

But Gwaine was preparing lunch, Percy, Owain and Gareth wanted to go out and check that the legs of some of the decommissioned pods were not too badly buried after the storm, Freya wanted to check out the skidoos and plan the next trip out to see the Happy Feet, and Edwin was doing a stocktake on the medical supplies. Mithian, meanwhile, was going to try to restore their connection to the outside world, which had got cut off during the blizzard.

When no-one else seemed to be forthcoming, Merlin sighed. After the nightmares and premonitions he had been having, there was no way he was letting Arthur and Mordred near any crevasses without a competent escort. He pinched the bridge of his nose, psyching himself up to speak.

“I’ll just pop out and get my togs,” Mordred was saying. “This is a brilliant plan, Arthur. We’ve been cooped up for so long that I can’t wait to…”

“Me too, I’d love to come,” Merlin said, firmly interrupting Mordred’s excited chatter.

“What?” Arthur laughed. “You? But you hate snowboarding!”

“Well, I’ll never get better at it if I don’t practice, will I?”

“Really? I distinctly remember you saying, and I quote, you’d rather watch paint dry than slide back and forwards uncontrollably on a murderously steep half-pipe like some sort of half-witted teenage skateboarding speed freak with no brains and a terminally well-developed death wish.”

Damn Arthur and his perfect memory for insults. His head was tipped on one side and a sardonic smile played around his lips.

“I changed my mind?”

“Good man.” Turning, Arthur fumbled with the airlock door. “No time like the present! Let’s get out before the daylight fades.”

Mordred just gazed at Merlin with that disconcerting solemn face that he had, and then flashed him a blinding grin that Merlin wasn’t sure was entirely sincere.

It wasn’t like Merlin to take an instant dislike to anyone, but Mordred was one of the most irritating people Merlin had ever met. He wasn’t sure what had come first – his mistrust of Mordred, or the sudden appearance of Mordred in all his worst nightmares. But there was something about him, that was for sure. He tried to keep his feelings to himself, but he’d caught Mordred staring at him a couple of times, and was worried that he’d let something of his distaste slip.

“Come on Merlin. Not like that! You look like a bloody windmill!” Arthur guffawed as Merlin slithered inevitably to the ground, for the umpteenth time, arse first.

“Two windmills, with those skinny arms,” howled Mordred, doubling over with laughter.

“It’s all right for you, Arthur,” said Merlin, glaring at them both as he struggled to get one hand onto the ground and rotate his body forwards, making the snowboard inch away from him, before falling flat onto his arse again with a pained grunt. “I’m not as well padded as you are.”

Arthur was wearing ski goggles, but they were pushed up over his hat so Merlin could see how he rolled his eyes.

“You really are not designed for this, are you, Merlin?” he said, but his smile was soft and he held out a hand to help Merlin up.

Merlin was about to sigh and admit that it was true but then Mordred had to add his tuppence worth.

“Yeah, Arthur,” said Mordred, pursing his lips together. “Don’t know how he managed to blag his way onto the expedition, to be honest.”

“Well.” Arthur looked uncomfortable for a moment, but then as Merlin staggered to an upright position, burst out laughing again. “Look at you,” he said, “You look like bambi on an ironing board!”

“Quick, little deer!” cackled Mordred, hopping into position in one easy move. “Don’t let the nasty fox catch you! Awww!” Turning, he slipped over the lip onto the obstacle course and slithered away, gaining momentum with a few well-timed jerks of his board.

“Fuck off.” Merlin bit his lip, fuming. Cold had seeped through the hundreds of layers, but movement was still impossible, thanks to all the necessary padding. His baffling inability to stand on a slippery surface with his feet effectively pinned together meant that his bum felt sore from all the heavy landings. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Arthur’s barbed comments were bad enough. But the way that Mordred picked up on Arthur’s teasing and amplified it made him want to chuck his snowboard down the nearest crevasse.

Merlin wasn’t sure whether there was some genuine hero-worship going on, or whether Mordred was just a sycophant, and frustratingly he found that he couldn’t read him. Since he’d learned to train his magic, Merlin hadn’t encountered anyone else quite like him. Although his aura remained neutral there was a hint of darkness to it, as if he was hiding something.

After the nightmares he’d been having, and the increasing number of times he’d felt like he was being watched, especially around Arthur, Merlin was loath to trust him.

Still grinning, Arthur flipped his goggles down and leaped forward with a whoop, leaving Merlin alone with his sour thoughts and his sore arse.

As soon as he was sure their backs were turned, he muttered a quiet spell under his breath, and groaned in bliss as instant warmth seeped through his clothes. Then he added another spell and set off forwards, his balance magically improved. If he couldn’t beat them, he thought, why not join them? Gathering every ounce of his determination he set off across the obstacle course, gaining momentum as he went. Grimly he hurtled over a large mogul, executed a perfect somersault, and landed full on his board before hurling gracefully, like a bowling ball, into Arthur and Mordred, who had just finished their runs. They toppled like a pair of skittles, and Merlin fell on top of them.

“Well, that was fun,” he said, as they all lay there panting, breath mingling in the cold air.

“Idiot,” said Arthur, punching him on the arm with a wry smile and then crawling out of the pile with a grunt of effort.

“Yeah,” added Mordred. “You’re a complete idiot, Merlin.” But there was no fond exasperation in his voice, only icy disdain.

Good. Merlin felt almost triumphant that he’d provoked Mordred into a genuine reaction. But then something about the spiteful set of Mordred’s mouth made him shiver, and wonder how long they would make him stay out there.

Arthur still wasn’t brilliant at getting out of bed, which was why it was such a shock when it was Merlin who, for once, was being shaken awake.

“Merlin! Come on, sleepyhead. Let’s be having you, lazy daisy!”

“S’ my line.” Merlin groaned and pulled the pillow over his head, but it was no good. Arthur was stronger than him, and wrestled the pillow away in no time at all.

“L’me’lone,” Merlin muttered, hanging on to the pillow like grim death. “S’middlenight.”

“Aurora, Merlin! Aurora! God, you’re like a bloody limpet with that pillow. I’m beginning to think you love it more than me.”

“Oi! Entitledpra’,” Merlin protested weakly into his pillow.

“Look. Come and see the southern bloody lights, you soft idiot.”

Something of Arthur’s words must have percolated through then, because Merlin allowed one eye to open, and loosened his grip on the pillow temporarily.

“Southerligh’s?” he murmured.

An excited blond head loomed into view.

“Yes, idiot. Come quickly. It’s an amazing display, the first big one of the winter. That solar flare they promised us is really putting on a show. C’mon!”

Arthur tugged the pillow so hard that Merlin fell out of bed with a thump.

“Ow!” Merlin grimaced and gave up on the pillow to rub at his eyes. “Seriously, they’re on now? You’re not kidding me?”

“Would I?” Arthur’s eyes were dancing with mischief. “As if!”

Merlin had to protest all the way up to the observation deck, just for the form of it. It wouldn’t do to let the bloody prat think he could just wake him up in the middle of the night for no reason, that would be a terrible precedent to set. But he couldn’t prevent the rising tide of excitement that bubbled up behind his sternum from making his voice shake and his lips lift in anticipation.

Aurora Australis! Just the sound of the name was exotic. It had been a dream of his since childhood to see it with his own eyes, only a handful of people from around the world would ever have this privilege. And when they reached the deck, where the others had all gathered, all words died in his mouth and he gazed speechless at the huge skies.

“Well, now I know what it takes to finally shut you up, Merlin,” Arthur murmured into his ear, and Merlin laughed out loud, partly because of Arthur’s dreadful joke, but mostly in sheer exhilaration at the silent show that was taking place above their heads.

As he watched, a bright, shimmering halo swelled to fill the whole sky like a giant green smoke ring, its leading edge sharp and bright, but the inner part of the loop fuzzy, flickering in shades of blue and startling gold. As it faded, streaks of green and yellow swept across the sky in its trail, changing shape like a wispy, glimmering stream of clouds. They looked like the ghosts of gods, huge, benevolent beings gazing down on the mortal Earth.

Closing his eyes, Merlin reached out with his hypersenses, ever higher, until his spirit floated above the atmosphere. Far below, the pale glaciers and ice fields glinted. Clusters of tiny penguins clouded the ice sheet. Up and up he glided. Laughing, he let himself be swept along by the light, until all earthly senses had faded and there was just him, him and the eternal sky.

At least, that’s what he thought, although for a second he imagined that a host of other beings joined him, singing as they soared and wheeled, propelled by the sun’s energy through the clouds. He laughed at his fancy, still able to feel how his earthly body shook with the sheer joy of it. This was what all the training with Taliesin had taught him, the ability to let his spirit fly while without losing contact with his corporeal reality. It was better when he could fly with a bird, of course. That was what he had nearly told Arthur, but something had told him to hold back.

Arthur.

Dimly he registered Arthur by the side of his earthly body, a bright warmth, all golden and glorious, until his soul sang with the very rightness of it, and he laughed again, joyful and for a moment without care.

“It’s amazing,” he whispered as he returned to himself, Arthur’s solid presence still pressed up against him, jammed as they were into the small space of the deck.

Arthur wasn’t looking at the sky when he replied.

“It is,” he said, in a hoarse voice, lacing his fingers with Merlin’s for a second where no-one could see, and holding Merlin’s gaze for a long moment until Merlin thought he was going to kiss him, there in front of everyone under the glowing sky, without thought for the consequences.

“Hot chocolate anyone?” Mithian’s voice broke the moment, and Arthur looked away.

Feeling oddly bereft, Merlin gently disentangled his fingers from where they still butted against the back of Arthur’s hand, and joined in the chorus of yes’s.

And that’s when he caught Mordred’s eye,

 _“An interesting display, Ambrose,”_ a voice whispered in his head

Merlin gasped, heart pounding, birthmark burning at his skin. Hastily, he slammed his hypersensual barriers up and started to back away.

When he turned he could feel Mordred’s gaze boring into the back of his head.

Sometimes, when Arthur was near Merlin, a sensation would steal over him, bathing him in an extraordinary warmth and energy. He thought that perhaps it was an aspect of Merlin’s magic that he had become sensitive to over time. He felt that sensation wash across him now, as they watched the aurora. With the light show playing across his cheekbones, Merlin seemed at once impossibly remote and yet almost so close that Arthur could almost feel what he felt. Euphoria tinged with wonder. An intoxicating mix to rival any whiskey. When their fingers touched, Arthur relished the contact more than he should, and missed it acutely when Merlin severed it.

There was something there, something that fizzed in the air between them, and as they all trooped back to the accommodation pods and peeled off into their individual bunk rooms, Arthur found himself gravitating naturally towards Merlin. He couldn’t help it. He had to touch Merlin, just had to. Had to renew that contact. His skin felt too tight, too cold without it. Arthur knew he should not be letting his feelings take over like this. It would make the betrayal hurt Merlin all the more when it came. But he could no more resist them than a mountain could withstand the relentless scouring of the ice sheet. Merlin’s joyful smiles and diamond-bright loyalty, his ethereal beauty and extraordinary abilities, had ground away Arthur’s defences leaving only a burning core of irresistible longing.

“What did you do, back there?” They were in their bunks, and slipping back into sleep, before Arthur broached the subject. “I felt something. It was you, wasn’t it?”

Merlin was silent for such a long moment that Arthur thought for a second that he’d gone back to sleep, but then he let out a sigh.

“You know that I have these senses,” he said. “Gaius calls them hypersenses, which for the want of a better term I call magic, because it seems I can… I can actually use them. To do things. I hadn’t realised you could feel it but tonight… I can feel you, Arthur. I don’t even have to try, any more. I just know where you are. I have to keep it all locked away most of the time. But sometimes, like tonight, I… I just couldn’t help it. The sky was so beautiful. I let it out. I… did you really feel something? What did you feel?”

Arthur heard the bedclothes rustle, and looking round saw that Merlin had propped himself up onto his elbow and was staring across the room at him. He could see the faint glitter of light reflected on his eyes.

He swallowed. It was far-fetched, what Merlin was saying, but in his bones he knew it to be true. He could feel it himself sometimes. There was something about Merlin’s presence, something quietly exuberant and glorious, that stole into Arthur’s heart when he wasn’t looking and soothed it. A bizarre thought struck him. Prompted by it, he reached up to scratch the place where he cut himself shaving, that morning. Instead of a scab, he found only smooth skin, perfectly healed, and his heart began to beat faster.

“Merlin… It felt like…” Arthur couldn’t finish the sentence, not out loud, but he spoke the word into the quiet of his heart. Love. It felt like – Arthur felt loved. Cherished. Admired. It felt extraordinary, and he missed it when it left him, albeit with a caress. “It was warm, somehow. Hard to describe. I felt better, afterwards. Merlin, can you heal people?”

“I don’t think so. Not on purpose anyway.” Across the dim cabin, Merlin was frowning at him. “Taliesin… my mentor. He didn’t think so.”

“You really are a wonder, Merlin.” Shaking his head, Arthur exhaled sharply. “And the wonder is that you are such an _idiot_ , sometimes. You just healed me. You know that? Without even knowing it. I cut my face shaving this morning, and now it’s gone.”

“Really?” Merlin gazed dumbly across the room.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure? It’s never worked before.”

“I think I’d know if I cut my own face, Merlin.”

”But…” there was a soft thud, as if Merlin had thrown himself back onto the mercy of his pillow. “Shit. I wonder what else I did.”

 _Shit, indeed,_ thought Arthur, who was quietly examining his own feelings and wondering the same thing.

The final weeks in the approach to midwinter seemed to pass slowly. Everyone was being secretive, feverishly knitting, sewing and cutting coloured pieces of card in the privacy of their own cabins. The tradition went that homemade gifts would be given on midwinter’s eve, and the weather was so awful that there was little else to occupy them.

The Sunday before the big party, it happened to be Merlin’s turn to take on the job of cooking for everybody.

The evening beforehand, there was a sudden hush when he pushed through the airlock of the living area, with Gwaine hot on his heels. A sudden hush, that was, from everyone except for Mordred, who was still speaking and who had his back to the door.

“Fucking lentils, I suppose,” he was saying. “God. We used to play with them when I was a toddler. Only thing they’re good for.”

Kara was nudging him feverishly, but it was too late. When Mordred finally turned round, the contrite expression on his face was far from sincere.

“Just you wait,” said Merlin, cheerily as he collapsed onto a chair. “A whole continent of Indians can’t be wrong. Gwaine and I’ve been busy prepping today, you’ll be amazed by our Indian breakfast.”

“Percy’ll be all right then,” said Leon. “Leftover curry for breakfast is his Sunday morning standby!”

“Huh. You’re a fine one to talk,” said Percy, shoving Leon so hard that he winced.

“Don’t worry, Merlin’s just trying to curry favour,” said Gwaine, flopping onto the sofa next to Leon.

Groaning, Leon poked him with his elbow.

“It’s not just curry,” said Merlin, laughing at the ensuing chaos. “We’re having pea and potato dosas and cabbage vada with sambar for breakfast. Dal makhani with rice for lunch. Vegetable pakora, spinach and cashew-nut curry, plus black-bean and coriander curry, and chickpea masala,with homemade chapattis and pickle for dinner.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad,” said Arthur peering at him over the top of his journal. “Where are you getting the veg from?”

“Gwaine’s got a good supply of frozen veg still. Coriander from the hydroponic greenhouse. And there’s loads of gram flour, lentils, chickpeas, black beans and stuff. Budge up!” He strode over to where Arthur was sitting and inserted himself on the edge of the sofa. “What are you reading?”

“ _Nature: Climate Change._ ” Arthur shuffled across a bit to let him sit down. “Did you know that Pendragon Oil are expanding into wind farms?”

“They’re not exactly making a huge effort, are they?” Mithian snorted.

“They are just paying lip service to renewable energy,” said Freya. “I don’t think they want it to succeed, but they want to have a toe in the water in case someone else picks it up and runs with it.”

“It does seem counter-intuitive. Oil companies just want to stick to what they’re good at,” said Arthur. “It wouldn’t make business sense to undercut themselves – it would reduce the oil price if other significant energy sources were found.”

“You’re basically admitting that Freya’s right,” said Mithian.

The conversation passed across to a discussion of why oil companies were dragging their heels investing into renewable energy. But Merlin could tell that they were still apprehensive about the following day’s menu.

As usual, Percy was the first into breakfast, having spent an hour in the gym. After he had had helped himself to third helpings, Merlin was thinking about introducing rationing.

“Bloody Hell, Merlin,” Percy said crunching into his third dosa. “These are gorgeous. Can I have another one?”

“No!” Merlin bopped his hand with his spatula. “Wait till everyone’s been in!”

“But half of them aren’t even up yet! Just one, go on!”

“Piss off, Percy, or I’ll substitute the evil extra strong sambhar.”

“You wouldn’t.” Percy made puppy eyes at him. “Go on, Merls. You know I’ve always fancied you.”

“Oi! That’s bloody cupboard love. You straight macho types are all the same. It’s all ‘no homo’ this, ‘no homo’ that, but as soon as you find out I can cook, you’re all over me quicker than I can say garlic pickle!” There was no heat in Merlin’s words, and he found himself grinning. He had grown immensely fond of Percy over the months.

Percy chuckled. “You can’t blame me for trying!”

“Nah, you’re alright.” Merlin grinned and surreptitiously passed him an extra vada. “Here. Have another one of these – try it with the coconut.”

“Cheers, mate. You’re a diamond.”

That’s when Kara came in, Mordred trailing along in her wake like a puppy. Merlin knew better by now than to try to speak to her this early in the morning. Wordlessly, he handed her a vat of coffee instead. She took it and buried her nose in it with a groan, while Mordred flashed Merlin a sheepish smile.

By the time that Arthur, Leon and Gwaine arrived, the dosa batter was beginning to run out.

“There’s only enough for two,” said Merlin.

“That’s all right, give them to the princess.“ Gwaine nudged Leon, hard, in the ribs. “ Let him have a _dosa_ his own medicine.”

Leon groaned. “Oh God. How long have you been waiting to tell that joke?”

“It’s all right,” said Arthur. “I’ll just have corn flakes, thanks.”

“Cereal killer,” said Gwaine, ducking to avoid Leon’s expertly aimed bread roll.

Breakfast didn’t meet with universal approval. Freya was not keen on the spicy sambhar. But even Mordred praised the dosas, and on the whole Merlin felt that it was quite a success.

Mordred and Kara were on duty helping him wash up afterwards.

“All ready for midwinter?” said Merlin, casting around for safe topics.

“I think so. I’ve been sewing like a demon.” Kara laughed. “So, what have you got me then, Mords?” She flicked Mordred’s bum with her towel.

“Ah, now that would be telling.” Mordred grinned slyly as he loaded a tray of mugs into the dishwasher. “Better be careful with that towel, Kara Sheelin. You don’t want to break anything and get in trouble with the chef.”

“Dear me, no.” Kara shuddered. “Imagine if Gwaine went on strike and we had to suffer Merlin’s cooking every day!”

“Oi! I resent that!” Merlin was exhausted already and it was only 10 o’clock.

“She doesn’t mean it.” Mordred rubbed Kara’s arm, smiling. “She’s just a big tease, aren’t you, Sheelin?”

“Careful now,” said Kara, smiling back at Mordred. Their faces seemed to dip together for a second and then pull apart, as if they only just remembered Merlin was there. As Merlin watched, Mordred looked up at him and then blushed before turning back to the cupboard.

Aha. So it was like that, was it. Merlin was rather cheered to realise that he wasn’t the only person on station with a massive and inappropriate crush on a colleague.

“What sort of a name is Sheelin anyway,” said Merlin, conversationally as he attacked his dosa pan with the scourer. “It sounds Irish or something.”

“Yeah.” Kara pushed the drawer into the dishwasher with a bang that made Merlin wince, and started loading plates.” My dad wasn’t on the scene, so I took my mum’s name, actually. It means ‘fairy lake’. Her original name was Lake, but she didn’t like it so she changed it to Sheelin a few years ago.”

Merlin was grateful that he only had heavy steel pans in his washing up bowl, and not anything fragile, because otherwise it would have smashed when he dropped it with a clatter.

“Ooops,” he said, trying to still his suddenly racing pulse with some meditation exercises Taliesin had taught him.

“Butterfingers.” Mordred was looking at him again, with that disconcertingly inscrutable stare that he had.

“Mmm.” Merlin picked up the pan and flashed Mordred a smile before turning away, mentally checking that all his defences were firmly in place. “Silly me.”

On Midwinter's Eve, the sun was far away as it would get for the duration of the trip, and in honour of its imminent return the Tintagel Base team held a party.

The festivities began early in the morning when, tradition had it, the station commander provided everyone with breakfast in bed. Merlin was greeted by an exhausted but proud-looking Arthur at 7am, clutching a steaming plate of baked beans and mushrooms on toast.

“Mushrooms!” Merlin fell on them with a happy cry. “Where on earth did you manage to source these?”

“Grew them myself. I am the king of botany, Merlin, as you know,” said Arthur, voice smug, hair in great clumps where he’d evidently been clutching it during the arduous cooking process. “And, by extension, mycology.”

“King of arrogant prats, more like,” muttered Merlin under his breath.

“I heard that. Idiots enjoying fresh mushrooms for the first time in six months should keep their mouths shut.”

“But if I keep my mouth shut how am I going to get the mushrooms in?”

“Shut up Merlin!” Arthur opened the door to leave.

“These are amazing Arthur, thanks.” Merlin waved his mushroom-stacked fork in Arthur’s general direction.

“You’re welcome,” Arthur replied through the closing door. Merlin could hear the grin in his voice.

But this rare moment of ease was sadly short lived.

That evening, they dressed in their cabin for the party.

Merlin turned away while Arthur was dragging on his clothes, not through a particular sense of privacy or respect, but more because of the recent awkwardness that had sprung up between them. For himself, he selected his purple silk shirt, and stood in front of the tiny wardrobe mirror while he straightened his collar.

“That shirt suits you, you know,” Arthur said in a soft voice. “You should wear it more often.” He coughed, and then added in a deeper, more waspish tone, “mind you, you could try a bit harder with your hair.”

This was exactly the sort of thing that made Merlin feel so jumpy. Bloody Arthur; all warm and admiring one second, and then it was as if an alien spoke into his ear and reminded him that he needed to act like a complete prat.

“What is it with the personal abuse? You,” he said, furiously tucking his shirt under his waistband, “could do with some bloody manners, Arthur Pendragon.”

It was true that his hair had grown, and was prone to falling in unruly tufts around his ears, but it wasn’t as if he as the only one on the base who had let personal grooming become a low priority. Gwaine, for example, was now having to tie his hair up in a ponytail to prepare food, while Leon resembled a shaggy, dirty-blond bear.

“Just because you fucked me and then dumped me doesn’t mean you have a right to act like a complete arse,” he added.

Arthur flinched as if Merlin had struck him.

Merlin allowed himself a moment of savage triumph, and then sighed, deflating. A solid lump of chagrin settled in his throat, which no amount of swallowing could dislodge. The birthmark that lay hidden under his waistband throbbed a counterpoint to his pounding headache and suddenly the last thing that he wanted was to go to a party.

“Look. Merlin, about that…”

God. Was the prat really choosing now to go in for soul searching?

“I think you’ve already made your feelings on that topic abundantly clear,” said Merlin, in a tone of voice that hopefully conveyed an unwillingness to discuss it any further. Not wanting to let Arthur’s sourness spoil his evening,he turned to the door. “Coming?”

Without waiting for a reply, he stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

If it wasn’t for his responsibilities as the station leader, Arthur would be inclined to get rip-roaringly drunk that evening. As it was, he would have to content himself with a couple of beers and no more. It wouldn’t do for everyone on station to get pissed – although they had a medic on hand, accidents and stupidity could get you killed far too easily when the outside temperature was minus twenty-five celsius, with wind chill taking it down even further. A particularly savage gust howled round the legs of the pod, and he shivered, despite the warmth inside the room.

Merlin, at least, seemed to have no such compunction. Between glares at Arthur – which he knew were thoroughly deserved – he seemed intent on imbibing as much of the limited station supplies of vodka as possible. Gwaine, the bastard, was gleefully on hand to ply Merlin with the stuff.

Sipping morosely at his beer, Arthur alternated between frowning at their antics and wandering over to the window to gaze out at the blackness.

“Penny for them.” Freya stood at his shoulder, with a glass of what appeared to be orange juice in her hand.

“Just wondering what the weather holds for tomorrow, that’s all,” he lied.

“It’s going to be a fierce one.” She peered through the window with him. “Might need to check the radar antenna in the morning. Don’t think we’re going to be letting Kara and Mordred out to do any measurements tomorrow.”

Arthur nodded. It was a shame, but sometimes the weather was too severe for them to carry out some of these procedures.

He’d grown to like Freya a lot. Soft-spoken, but nevertheless unafraid of speaking her mind when it was needed, she was a steady, practical presence on the team. He felt at ease with her, which is why, he supposed, his guard was down when she spoke again.

“You need to be careful,” she said. “With Merlin, I mean. You’re confusing him. And hurting him. I don’t know what’s happened between you, but I’m sure that he doesn’t deserve that.”

He had never known that soft brown eyes could inflict such wounds. Momentarily at a loss for words, he gazed at her dumbly.

“You’re right.” He looked down at his empty beer bottle and swallowed. “He doesn’t.”

“Good,” she said, smiling at him as if she hadn’t just robbed him of all rational thought with a few words. She patted him on the arm. “So fix it, then.”

If only it could be that easy. Merlin was standing, laughing at something Gwaine had said, his eyes bright and cheeks flushed from the alcohol. Arthur was unprepared for the waves of longing that cascaded over him. But then Merlin looked up, and the laughter died, replaced by a wary, shut-in look that Arthur knew was all his fault.

Turning back to the window, Arthur pressed his forehead to the cool plastic and willed the evening to end.

Mithian had set up a big screen in the dining room. The evening’s special broadcast from Albion Broadcasting Company would bring messages from the great and the good. And, more importantly, friends and family.

The first message was from Prime Minister Aulfric, who sent his best wishes in a pompous monotone.

“Wow. That’s amazing. The Prime Minister!” said Percy, round-eyed.

“Bloody politicians.” Gwaine scowled. “Always happy to jump on the bandwagon if they think it’ll further their political careers.”

“Well I think it’s amazing,” said Percy, crestfallen.

“Huh!” said Mithian. “Old Alfie knows my father. He’s stayed at our place a few times. He’s got bad breath, and he snores like a bloody foghorn.”

Clapping his hands, Merlin laughed, his face lighting up in delight. He looked like he was about to say something, but then the personal messages from friends and family started, and everyone shushed him.

Owain’s mum looked sweet-faced and kind. When she said she missed him, the big fellow blew his nose a few times. Percival’s nieces all looked tiny, which made Arthur smile. Genetics could be a fickle thing. Gwaine’s personal message came from his entire football team.

“Missing your right boot,” said one of them. “Not your personality, mind.”

“Nah,” said another. “And definitely not your poncey hair.”

“Bastard!” Laughing, Gwaine lifted his beer and took a swig.

This continued in the same vein for a while, until Arthur noticed that Merlin sat rigidly upright, and he realised that it must be Merlin’s mother on screen. She looked tired and fragile, but her eyes were kind.

“Missing you, Merlin,” she said, smiling. “It’s been far too quiet, while you’ve been away. But luckily Gwen and Lance look in on me from time to time, with baby Robin.”

Arthur barely had time to register the way that Merlin swallowed and wiped his eye before his own father was on screen, looking deceptively benevolent.

“I’m very proud of you, Arthur,” Uther said, “and of all that I know you are going to accomplish on this expedition.” The veiled expectation in his words was so obvious that Arthur paled, thinking that everyone would know what he meant. He willed himself not to look round the room to see what others were thinking, but was sure he could feel eyes on him – not from Merlin, either, but from elsewhere in the room.

While the next relative came on screen he risked darting a glance towards the corner his discomfort originated from. Mordred, Kara and Edwin were sitting there – and Kara was looking straight at him.

With a shiver, he returned his attention back to the screen.

After all the messages from friends and family, everyone was rather subdued and several people rose as if to retire early. For the sake of morale, Arthur shook himself out of his own malaise and stood, rattling his empty beer bottle with a fork.

“Alright, ladies and gents,” he said. “I know you’re all tired. It’s been an emotional day. But before we all go off to bed, let’s just remember what today marks – it may not be the end of the winter, but it is the beginning of the end. The wheel of time is turning, and gradually we are inching closer to the day when the he sun will make a welcome return to our world. We’ve got a 3-night expedition out to the Happy Feet planned as soon as the weather lifts for long enough. The males are incubating their eggs out there in this storm, huddling together for warmth. Just think of them as you take your hot water bottle to your bunk, tonight!”

There was a collective wry snigger at that, and some rueful grins. Merlin’s expression was soft and admiring. Suddenly remembering a day, years ago, when Merlin had lent him his penguin hot-water bottle, Arthur smiled.

“Thank you for your presents,” he added, holding aloft the woolly pink scarf that Merlin had knitted him, under Mithian’s expert tutelage. “I will particularly treasure this, for obvious reasons.”

Everyone laughed at that.

“Right. So, off to bed with you all. It’s my job to clear this lot up!”

And then there was a murmuring and a scraping of chairs as the yawns and rubbed eyes propagated out through the group like a ripple of fatigue. Soon, Arthur was left alone with the debris. He worked his way round the room, sweeping food waste into a bag for composting, clearing bottles and plates into a bucket, and finally switching off the giant TV.

“Thanks for nothing, father,” he said quietly to the blank screen as the picture faded to black.

It was midday, on midwinter’s day, and the incessant wind had died down for once. Arthur gazed out across the vast, desolate ice sheet. A faint stain of dark orange smudged the sky above the stark black line of the horizon, far in the distance towards the sea. In a little over six weeks, a tiny crescent of sun would peep for a moment over the edge of the world, but until then they would endure the long, silent night.

Hearing the crunch, crunch of footsteps across the ice towards him, he turned.

“All right?” Merlin’s face was largely hidden by his padded coat, but Arthur could see a faint dark-gold gleam from his eyes, and the laughter lines and wrinkles that laced the skin above his cheeks.

“Fine. Just listening to the quiet. You?”

“Yeah.” Clouds of Merlin’s breath gusted through his scarf. “Never heard silence so loud. It’s uncanny isn’t it?”

The air was so still that Arthur fancied he could hear Merlin’s heart beating. As they stood for a moment, Arthur felt a warmth steal through his bones and knew that Merlin was reaching out with his magic. Letting it bathe him, filling him with a sense of belonging, he closed his eyes. He shouldn’t indulge this delight he took in Merlin’s presence, he shouldn’t. But sometimes it seemed that stopping breathing would be easier.

Drawing in a deep breath, Merlin turned as he spoke.

“You know, when I was a child, I used to think that no people lived in Antarctica because they would fall off the bottom of the world. But then I learned about gravity, and perspective. And suddenly it made sense.”

Arthur nodded.

“All the maps were only made with the north at the top, because that’s how European explorers drew them,” he said.

“That’s it. Arthur.” Merlin sighed. “I suppose… I think that what I’m trying to say is… you can’t see the whole picture. You shouldn’t blame yourself for things that aren’t your fault.”

Arthur chewed this nugget over for a moment or two, and then smiled wanly while the last vestiges of light faded.

“Thanks, Merlin,” he said, his mood lifting even as the darkness descended.

Merlin clapped him on the shoulder, turned, and trudged back to the station.

It was a few weeks later. They were getting two hours of daylight a day already, and still no sign of the dragon eggs. There had to be a breakthrough soon. Arthur was going stir crazy.

Thanks to the relative calm of the next few days’ weather forecast, a select group were planning a trip to see how the baby penguins and their fathers had fared over the winter. Arthur was pinning all his hopes on this expedition, but there was an obstacle.

Merlin, and his damned premonitions.

“No, Arthur, you should stay here.” Merlin glared at him. “Freya, Percy and I will be perfectly all right.”

“For heaven’s sake, Merlin, normally I can’t get rid of you – even when I’m doing something you hate.” Frustrated, Arthur paced round the cabin. It wasn’t large, so the paces were few and the turns were many. “The decision’s final, I’m coming too.”

“For fuck’s sake, Arthur. You’re a stubborn, irritating prat sometimes. You’re the station commander; you should stay here!” Merlin’s voice was rising, and with it the tension in the cabin.

“It’s only a trip out to the Happy Feet.” Although Arthur wasn’t sure. What if Merlin was planning to go off grid and find the dragon eggs? Arthur had to be there when he found them, then he could draw a line under the whole sorry business. “It’ll only be one night off station. Leon is perfectly capable of holding the fort while I’m gone.”

“It’s dangerous out there.” Merlin’s mouth turned sour. “I’ve… I’ve got a bad feeling about it, Arthur. You should stay here, where you’re safe.”

This was the crux of the matter. Merlin’s nightmares had been getting worse, and several times that week he’d woken up yelling Arthur’s name in sheer terror. It was flattering, of course, but the novelty had rapidly worn off and Arthur now found himself wishing for a good night’s sleep.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “I’m an Antarctic scientist, Merlin. What if Scott and Amundsen had stayed home because they had a _bad feeling,_ mm? What if Ernest Shackleton’s mum had said, _Oh no! Don’t go Ernie, I’ve had a bad dream.”_ Arthur delivered this last in a ridiculous falsetto.“Where would Antarctic science be then, huh?”

Swallowing, Merlin took a moment to answer. Arthur thought he was about to cry, which would have been the absolute limit. If there was one thing Arthur couldn’t stand it was emotional blackmail.

Rather than stand against the rising tide of guilt and resentment, Arthur turned and fled, still fuming, slamming the cabin door in his wake.

When Merlin saw the vast sea of penguin parents, he thought his heart would melt. And then when he drew closer, he could make out the tiny grey heads of the babies. Each chick was nestled into the incubation pouch of either its mother or father, and his eyes misted.

“Thought zoologists weren’t meant to be sentimental.” Arthur drew up alongside, ski-mask up on his forehead.

“Thought Station Commanders weren’t meant to be prats.”

“You need another insult, you’ve worn that one out.” Chuckling, Arthur turned and skied back to the skidoos. “Give me a hand, Merlin, you lazy layabout. Let’s get these teepees up before the light goes.”

“Lazy layabout yourself.” Sighing, Merlin reluctantly turned his back on the squawking, squabbling blur of black and grey that stretched towards a low cliff in the foreground.

He’d tried, he really had, but any amount of persuasiveness couldn’t counter Arthur’s obstinacy. And he couldn’t deny that having Arthur by his side added to moments like these. Sighing, he dragged one of the tents off the back of a skidoo trailer, eyeing the landscape to find the optimum orientation for the opening. Arthur was right. He was getting sentimental.

The main problem he had now was: how to get away?

For weeks, Merlin had forced himself out in all weathers to make sure that Arthur was never left alone with Mordred near any crevasses, fighting the rising tide of dread that came over him whenever he slept. Arthur had acted like he’d been getting mightily sick of him. But now, just when Merlin finally had an opportunity to explore the co-ordinates from his father’s ill-fated expedition all those years ago, the prat was clinging to his side like a burr.

Anyone would think he knew that Merlin was up to something.

That evening, the air was still and the cloud had lifted, so they sat outside the tents under the panoply of stars, cast like carelessly discarded diamonds across the sky.

“I always miss this,” said Freya. “Back home, I mean. When I’m down here, I miss curry and decent beer and trees and the murmur of conversation in a pub. But it only takes a few days, up there. And I start to miss the sky.”

“I know what you mean,” said Percy. “I could murder a curry, though.”

Merlin laughed. Their vacuum packed noodles had been particularly uninspiring.

“Me too,” he said.

“There’s a simple solution, Perce,” said Arthur. “Just bribe Merlin to be chef again.”

“Hey, good idea.” Percy sighed.

“What about people?” said Freya. “Missing anyone special, Perce?”

Her voice sounded normal enough. Merlin wasn’t sure why his ears pricked, until he reached out with his hypersenses and realised how nervous Freya was feeling.

“Nah,” Percy replied. His tone sounded a bit too nonchalant. “No one in particular.” He shuffled his chair a bit closer to Freya.

With all his barriers down, Merlin could sense that Arthur had opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment, but luckily a sharp jab from Merlin’s elbow was enough to make him close it again.

“I’m going to turn in,” said Merlin. He yawned and stretched ostentatiously. “So tired, all of a sudden. Coming, Arthur?”

“Nah. Ow! Merlin, stop that! What? Oh.” Arthur grinned as Merlin tilted his head minutely towards the other two. “Right. Sure. I’m tired. Night Perce. Night, Frey.”

But Percy and Freya didn’t answer.

Well before the allotted time, Arthur awoke to the sound of someone being silent.

It wasn’t a sound, as such. More a movement of air, a change in the quality of the stillness inside the teepee, that had his senses suddenly sharpened. He wondered fleetingly if this was what Merlin’s hypersenses felt like, and then dismissed the thought when there was an infinitesimal tick, tick noise that someone might make when they were, for example, trying to undo the zip on a teepee without waking the other occupant. 

“There’s no need to be quiet, Merlin.” whispered Arthur into the gloom. “I’m coming with you.”

“Erm – I’m only going out to. Erm… you know… look at the view, and—”

“We both know where you’re going, Merlin,” Arthur said in a low monotone. “Spare me the excuses. Either I come with you, or I follow you. It’s not safe out there on your own, and you know it.”

“Arthur—”

“We’re not going to do a Captain Oates on Freya and Perce, either. We’re going to give them our target coordinates and expected return time.”

“But, Arthur! It’s a secr—”

“I’m the station commander, and I expect you to take my word on this or you’ll find yourself blackballed from future Antarctic expeditions.” Delivering this last in a furious whisper, Arthur peered towards the tent entrance to gauge Merlin’s reaction. He couldn’t see anything, but he could sense waves of frustration coming off Merlin as he scrambled to pull on his gear.

“Of all the pig-headed, infuriating, arrogant, obnoxious pra—”

“Shut up, Merlin.” Arthur pulled on his hat and reached for his gloves. “You’ll wake the penguins.”

It was only when the GPS led them to a great glacier, that Merlin realised how naive he’d been to think that he could undertake this expedition on his own. Mentally blessing Freya for her foresight, he dug helmets, crampons, belt, ice pick and ropes out of the trailer, together with sundry other protection for safely making their way along into the ice. After checking each other’s equipment and the radio, the two of them set out along the ice sheet, hidden behind eye protection against the glare.

“Just like old times,” joked Merlin. It wasn’t. Although they’d been on a few rock-climbing trips together, with Camelot Mountaineering Club, years ago, all Merlin’s ice climbing experience had taken place much later, when he as training for his Antarctic expeditions, long after he and Arthur had parted. Even Albion’s deepest winter couldn’t match the scale and remoteness of the Antarctic winter.

Arthur was leading, and even under the thick layers of gear Merlin couldn’t help admiring his technique. Arthur had a natural grace and economy of movement that most people could never hope to achieve.

Still, Merlin did have some advantages. As they toiled along, he reached out with his hypersenses, and muttered spells under his breath to stabilise the glacier beneath them. They were close now, he could sense it. Even without the GPS showing their steady progress, he could feel something, an odd combination of familiarity and strangeness, bubbling up inside his chest.

But then abruptly his skin tingled and he felt a heavy cloud of dread mingled with excitement.

“Arthur, stop,” he said. “There’s something here.”

“One of your funny feelings again?” Arthur’s voice was sarcastic, but at least he paused and waited for Merlin to join him

Merlin didn’t answer. His pulse was racing, and not just from the exertion. Digging his toes deep into the compacted snow, he reached Arthur’s side.

As Arthur made as if to start forward again, Merlin clutched at his arm.

“Don’t.” Hand trembling, he poked at the snow just by Arthur’s toes.

Abruptly a heavy curtain of ice fell away in front of them, leaving a deep crevasse. Struggling with his footing, Arthur scrambled backwards with a curse.

“Softly, softly, does it,” said Merlin, feet scrabbling as he fought to gain traction. Each scuff of his crampons raised little puffs of snow. Another hefty lump was pushed away by his weight as they struggled back.

Finally, they reached a stable piece of ice that wasn’t overhanging. They stood, breathing heavily for a moment, staring across the great chasm.

Merlin tried not to think about what had just happened. Still roped together as they were, if one of them had fallen they would have both ended up hurtling over the edge.

“How are we going to get across there?” Arthur gesticulated

“We’re not.” Merlin grinned and pointed over the edge of the crevasse, past the unforgiving white surface, past the shocking blue upper edges and down, down into the inky depths beyond. “This is our destination. We’re going in.”

“Are you insane?”

“Yeah. I’m also right, though.” Merlin knew it. He knew it with a diamond-bright certainty that shocked him.

Something was down there, something alive, and it sang to him, with a joyous exultation that made his heart want to burst.

“Can’t you feel it?”

“No.” They exchanged a long stare, and then Arthur flashed him a mirthless grin. “Well. Maybe.

“Good. I’ll go first, you can belay.” Merlin started to unwind the rope coiled round his shoulders.

In the end, they didn’t have to abseil far before they entered the belly of a vast ice cave. It arched over them like a great cathedral of startling blue, sculpted by a giant.

Merlin tentatively probed forward along the treacherously slippery causeway into the cave’s deep throat.

“Keep the rope taut, clotpoll,” he said, his voice strangely loud in the enclosed space. Merlin’s hypersenses were wide open. He could sense that Arthur was as awestruck as he was.

“Teach your grandmother, Merlin.”

“I hope you get some pictures.”

“I’m on it.” There was a pause while Arthur rummaged under his jacket and pulled out his pocket camera. “Say _cheese!_ ”

A bright flash momentarily blinded Merlin, but he didn’t miss Arthur’s gasp.

“What?”

“Merlin. Put in some protection and stay right there. I’m coming to you.”

“Why?” Quickly, Merlin grabbed an ice-screw from his pack. He spent a moment securing it in the ice. Then, frustrated, by Arthur’s lack of reply, he muttered some words under his breath. Light suffused the ice-cave with a pale luminous glow. That’s when he saw what had attracted Arthur’s attention by the light of the camera flash. He swore out loud and momentarily lost his grip on his ice pick.

“Eggs! Bloody hell, Arthur, I thought they’d have gone by now…” Feeling his weight start to slide him forwards, he turned and jabbed his ice pick into the solid floor as hard as he could, clawing his way back up to the protection.

“Belay, idiot,” yelled Arthur, braking with his pick. But the sudden movement must have dislodged his camera. It skittered down the slope towards the lip of another great cliff.

Reaching out with his hand, Merlin yelled the words of summoning. Abruptly, the camera changed direction. Merlin clenched his fist. The camera slid up the slope as if drawn to him by an invisible thread. Grabbing it, Merlin stowed it safely in his jacket.

“Thanks.” Arthur’s voice shook a bit. It came from a few metres upslope. “Can we glissade down from here? If you’re up to glissading on this surface, that is.”

“I’m up to it, if you’re secure.” Ice glissading was hard work, but it would be the most efficient way to get down this steep slope, which was as slippery as a rink. “Keep away from that lip, down there on the right.” Carefully pulling in the rope and securing it, Merlin took a firm hold on his ice axe, and pressed the tip into the ice for braking.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Merlin pushed himself off.

Steering expertly away from danger over to his right, he could hear Arthur setting off above him. Sending down tiny lumps of ice like hailstones. They skidded past him as he slid down towards the waiting eggs.

“Whoa, stop!” Panting, he turned and braked as hard as he could. He dug his ice pick deep into the slippery surface and juddered, panting, to a halt.

“What is it?” Arthur’s silhouette was black against the azure walls.

“There’s water down here. I’m nearly at the bottom. Just give me a sec.” It had flattened out, and he could stand, here, his crampons scuffing the floor. “Come down! But careful, there’s another big drop over to the right.”

Straightening as Arthur joined him, Merlin gazed around him with a deepening sense of wonder.

The cave opened out, impossibly wide under the heavy ice, stretching up, up high above them, light filtering blue through a cleft that twisted and vanished from view. But that wasn’t what drew his attention.

There were five eggs that Merlin could see, a mere two or three metres away.

“Look, Arthur. They’re glowing!” He didn’t know why he was whispering. “They’re alive! They’re still here. Arthur!” Realising that he was trembling, he turned to Arthur in exaltation. “We found them! They can’t be the same ones… Arthur! Do you know what this means?”

But Arthur stood stock still, and Merlin could sense his distress.

“Arthur?”

“I’m sorry, Merlin.” Arthur’s voice was gravelly, deeper than usual. “I didn’t want it to be like this. I hope one day that you’ll understand.”

Stepping forward, he raised his ice pick.

It took a moment or two for Merlin to realise what Arthur was planning to do. The breath left him in a great whoosh.

“No!” he choked, running forward, crampons slithering on the slick ice, hands outstretched. “No! You can’t!” Hastily, he muttered a spell to raise a protective barrier around the eggs. And none too soon.

“They killed my mother.” Arthur brought the axe down with a roar that echoed round the cave. “Stand aside!”

The shield was an extension of Merlin’s own consciousness, his own self. He screamed out in agony, buckling as the axe bounced and deflected off it. The ice felt hard under his knee.

Hesitating, Arthur stood above the eggs, axe poised for another hit.

“Lower you shield, Merlin.” His voice was low and dangerous.

“No! You can’t do this, Arthur. I’m sure the dragons didn’t… they bring healing, not…! I don’t know what happened. Arthur! They’re sentient. Arthur, no!”

The second stroke hurt even more. Pain making tears trickle from his eyes. The shield held even under the force of Arthur’s wrath, but only just. Merlin could feel it start to warp and fragment from the impact. It felt like his skull was shattering.

“Please,” Merlin whispered, crumpling to the ice with a whimper as Arthur repeatedly pelted the shield with the blade. “It hurts.” He couldn’t hold it much longer. His breath was coming in great gasps, and agony wracked his frame.

“Lower it!” Arthur hissed. His shoulders heaved with the effort.

“No!” Raising his hands as if to protect his own head, Merlin curled into a ball. “Just listen to me,” he whispered. The pain in his head swelled, his consciousness splintering into small, jagged pieces. Licking his lips, he tasted blood.

When he heard,a new, high voice shrieking out a protest in the long tunnel above, Merlin thought he was hallucinating.

“No!” said the voice. “You mustn’t, stop him!”

The voice sounded familiar. It sounded like…

“Mordred! Quickly, stop him!”

Kara. It sounded like Kara.

Merlin could barely focus by now, but squinting he could just about see, a dark silhouette. Barrelling, out of the pale ocean-blue of the tunnel, out of a miracle, and out of control. Hurtling, limbs flailing, no ice axe in sight. The pressure on Merlin’s shield stopped and Arthur turned, a fraction too late.

“Arthur! Move!” It was Merlin who first understood the new danger. “Arthur!”

Mordred’s body slammed into Arthur’s and together they hurtled along the slippery cavern floor. Quickly, before Merlin could draw his wits together for long enough to formulate a plan to stop them, they flipped over the lip of the great chasm that lay beyond.

“Merlin! Help…me...”

Arthur’s great yell grew fainter,

“Mordred!” Kara screamed. “No! Mordred, no!”

“No!” Merlin echoed. Arthur couldn’t die, he couldn’t! His birthmark burned so hard that he screamed, the pain of Arthur’s loss descending on him like a cloud of intense white heat. “Arthur! No!”

Weakened as he was, Merlin barely had time to erect another hastily assembled shield, this time reaching out to cocoon Arthur and Mordred as they fell. Even with his hypersenses wide open, he barely registering the dull glow of Arthur’s rapidly fading sense. Numb, he realised that Arthur was fading as he fell. As for Mordred – Merlin could feel Arthur clutching his body, but there was not even a spark of awareness. Mordred must have blacked out.

They were so heavy. The effort made his whole body protest. He could feel his grip slipping. Gritting his teeth, he tensed and willed himself to endure. He couldn’t lose Arthur. With an abrupt realisation, his breath left him a great sob. This was the moment he had foreseen. And he didn’t care any more if he found out what happened to his father. Nor about the dragons. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. Only the fragile wisp of life that he held with his mind. It was everything. Arthur was everything.

But he couldn’t hold on forever.

His strength was beginning to fade.

Desperate, he let the final barrier slip from his mind. He was open now, to the deep earth and the wide, wild sky and the thick, frozen ice that separated them. Open, and the whole universe slipped in, vast and cold and indifferent.

“Help me,” he howled in silent supplication.

There was a sensation of darkness, of falling, and then, oddly, of flight.

_Wings outstretched, he swooped into the icy canyon, wingtips mere inches from its treacherous walls, curiosity mingled with outrage. Who were these people, and how dare they to intrude on his clutch?_

Confused and fatigued, Merlin sensed a heavy pressure on his back, and he fought to maintain height.

Simultaneously, another part of him felt the weight on the shield he’d wrapped around Arthur and Mordred ease.

 _“Leave me now,”_ whispered a deep, unknown voice, _“I will protect your mate.”_

Obediently, Merlin slipped back into his own head, barriers slamming back up. Exhaustion getting the better of him, blissful slumber washed through his trembling limbs and he fell senseless to the infinitely cold, hard, floor.

When he awoke, strange laughter sounded in his head. His eyes blinking open, he saw a friendly reptilian face looming over him, steam flaring through its nostrils. For a moment, he thought he was back in his room in the flat in Camelot City. But then, when he sat up and felt his aching head, he realised that he was wearing a helmet.

The knobbly-headed beast was still there, though.

Gradually, his peripheral vision resolved their camp near the penguin colony. Mordred and Kara were conferring in low voices to their side, and two figures, one small, one large, were skating across the sea-ice towards them. Percy and Freya.

Abruptly, he remembered

“Arthur!” he murmured. His tongue felt too big for his mouth, somehow. He wondered if he’d dreamt the whole thing – but yet the reptilian face was still there, staring enquiringly into his own.

“He’s waking up.” The voice was unmistakeable. Familiar, exasperated, beloved. It filled Merlin with gratitude, and a sudden urge to weep. And warm. He felt warm. How odd.

Then he remembered the sight of Arthur rolling off the edge of the world, into the deep inky mysteries of the great beyond, and he swallowed, ice touching his bones again for a moment.

“Arthur? You’re all right?” he croaked. “And… and Mordred?”

This time he could hear more than one laugh – the strange, deep chuckle in his head, and Arthur’s, which sounded slightly hysterical – and also very close to the back of his head.

“Yeah,” said Arthur, shakily. “The… the… er… creature.”

“Dragon” said the deep voice in his head. “He means dragon.”

Arthur can’t have heard this interjection, because he carried on speaking.

“… flew down into the crevasse and, it would seem, thought for some reason that we were worth rescuing. As we hovered, I might add, mid-air, above a jagged ice stalagmite. It was touch and go for a minute. I was weak, and far away, but then felt warm and strong again. Curious.”

Warmth flooded through Merlin, filling him with contentment, and he realised what Arthur meant.

“I thought you were dead,” he said. He licked his chapped lips. “I thought you’d left me. Don’t leave me. Arthur.”

“Never.” Arthur’s voice was barely a whisper.

Smiling, Merlin reached out with a hand to touch Arthur’s face, and then realised that he was not wearing his gloves. And yet, he still felt warm, and strength was returning to him in waves.

“Thank you,” Arthur added in a stronger voice, and Merlin realised he was talking to the dragon. “I don’t know what you did, or why, but thank you. I would be dead, and probably Mordred and Merlin, too. And, on her own as darkness fell, I wouldn’t have rated Kara’s chances much, either.”

The dragon bowed its head.

“The dragons bring healing.” Its voice sounded in his head, again, but it was louder and Merlin wondered if everyone could hear. “It is an honour to serve. And after all, we are kin. You and your mate are dragonborn, both.”

Now, what was that supposed to mean?

“But we owe you a debt,” said Arthur, softly. ““What would you have us do, in return?”

“Eons ago, our kind lived harmoniously with yours, and would breed in the far north, away from here. But then changes came, and we were forced to give up our traditional migrations. We hid here, in this inhospitable place. But it is melting. Slowly, this ice sheet is melting. We will not have a hiding place for much longer.”

Arthur fell silent, a brooding expression flitting across his face.

“You will not disturb my eggs again,” added the dragon. It was not a command, more a statement, but Merlin had no doubt that Arthur could hear the undercurrent of threat in it.

There was a long pause, while Arthur mulled this over. Merlin bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything.

“Indeed,” said Arthur, eventually, his voice sounding deep and melancholy. “You have my word on it.”

Merlin felt a great sigh of relief escape him, and didn’t realise that he’d been holding his breath.

“But I would talk with you further,” Arthur added. “I wish to know what happened to my mother. And I would seek your help with the current crisis that will destroy our world, as well as yours.”

From where he was sitting, Merlin could see the dragon lowering its head, an inky silhouette against the darkening sky. It took him a moment to realise that he was bowing.

“We did not harm your mother. Dragons bring healing, not destruction. But there is no mystery to what happened to her. Perhaps your father has the answers that you seek. You are dragonborn, as is your mate. And there is another. We will come to you, when the sun is high in the sky and there is a quickening.”

“What do you mean?” said Merlin.

“As for you, young Warlock,” the dragon added, “I have given something of yours to your mate. I will fly with you again. Look for me when the aurora gilds the sky.”

A vision filled Merlin’s mind’s eye, of soaring, exultant, among the streams and ribbons of light that flared across the sky, of the presence by his side that rode them with him, and he sat up, startled.

“You!”

But the dragon just let out another cryptic chuckle, and beat its great wings, preparing to take off. As it left, Merlin felt the cold descend upon them like a cloud.

Mordred and Kara had been watching this scene.

“We should go,” said Kara. “It’s nearly dark already. And the wind’s getting up. We need to get back to the tents.

As if to punctuate her words, a sudden gust slammed into them, laden with snow and fragments of ice, and he rued the loss of his gloves acutely. Muttering a spell he sent out a glowing shield with his mind, and rose to his feet. His questions about what Mordred and Kara were doing there would have to wait. Freya and Percy were arriving, and it was time to zip themselves up securely into the tents.

“Come on, idiot,” said a soft voice in his ear. Arthur’s arm pressed heavy along his shoulders.

“It’s okay.” With the sudden energy that surged through him, Merlin felt able to tackle anything. Closing his eyes, he hummed a spell that Taliesin had taught him to generate light, and wove it with another to banish the cold. It would do for now.

His toes were numb even through his heavily insulated regulation Albion Antarctic Survey Mukluks when they arrived at the tents. But everyone was alive, even Mordred, which was pretty miraculous after the heavy tumble he’d taken. And that was the main thing.

That night, Arthur didn’t get a lot of sleep.

Kara stayed in Freya’s tent, and Mordred and Percy crammed into the one that he had been sharing with Merlin. So the conditions were cramped, to say the least.

And then there was Merlin.

“Are you going to talk to me about hiding what you intended to do, Arthur?” Merlin said, when Percy’s gentle snores and Mordred’s sleep-heavy breathing filled the tent. “About – you know. Lying to me. For months, Arthur. why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“If it’s any help, I wish I had.” Arthur toyed with his sleeping bag. “And I don’t want to harm them now, not any more, not now that—”

“You know what, I’m not ready to hear it yet.” Merlin burrowed under the covers. “I thought we were friends. I trusted you.” His voice cracked, a little then

“My father told me they killed my mother. The dragons say he lied. Whom should I believe?” Arthur whispered into the gloom.

“What about your friend, who loves you and who trusted you with all his secrets? How about listening to him and believing him when he says the dragons bring healing?”

Arthur hated the anguished tremor that made Merlin’s voice shake. It made him want to hit someone, preferably the person that had put the tremor there. Which was him, he realised.

“You didn’t know that was true! You only had an old notebook.”

“He was my father!”

“Now maybe you understand why I trusted mine.”

Merlin made a tiny, bitten-off sound, and then went quiet. Arthur was left wakeful and alone with his thoughts.

As the night went on, however, it was the wind that was to blame for his increasing inability to sleep. The wind conspired with a general sense of unease about the strange events of the last twenty-four hours to make Arthur tense, as he mulled over the dragon’s words. He lay awake listening to the gusts grow ever more fierce, slamming ice particles against the tent like a curtain of nails.

The tents were designed to withstand the fiercest of Antarctic winds. But this monster was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.

“Merlin, do something!” he shouted in the midst of one particularly vicious squall.

He could hear Merlin’s voice as he muttered arcane words under his breath. Fire erupted from Merlin’s hands, swirls of bright colours that swept through the tent walls and then disappeared, leaving a haze of purplish sparks in their wake. The light illuminated Percy and Mordred’s pale faces, wide awake and fearful. And Merlin’s of course. Calm and otherworldly. Remote and unreachable.

Arthur swallowed. Acting on some instinct, he reached out to wrap an arm round Merlin. He still hadn’t forgotten the agonised scream that Merlin had let out when Arthur had been trying to destroy the dragon eggs. He supposed that the shield was some kind of extension of Merlin’s self, and shuddered to think what it would cost Merlin to protect them all like this.

Abruptly the wailing wind was silenced, reduced to a more distant roar.

Merlin’s already pale face looked clammy and pained, and he started to shiver. His skin felt like ice.

“Keep him warm,” Arthur hissed at the other two, urgently.

The three men huddled around Merlin, warming him with the heat of their bodies, their sleeping bags and their sheepskins, but still he shivered.

A sudden gust must have slammed into the shield. Merlin shook violently, and cried out again. But the air around the tent remained calm. Not knowing how else to help, Arthur spoke to the others in a quiet voice, getting them to brew hot tea which he used to moisten Merlin’s parched lips. Merlin gulped at it greedily without looking, and Arthur wrapped another layer of fleece around his skinny shoulders, trying not to fret.

Dragonborn, the creature had called him. What did that mean?

It was warm now, in the tent, but Mordred’s blinkless stare made him shiver.

Merlin’s screams were getting quieter, now, reduced to a pained whimper. He slumped against Arthur’s shoulder, cold and trembling.

All around them the tempest raged. Arthur thought the long night would never end.

This time when Merlin woke, he was cold.

“Go back to sleep, idiot.” Soft lips pressed themselves to his forehead. “You saved us. I’ve got you.”

Shivering he snuggled against the solid warmth of Arthur’s body, and dozed back off again.

Some time in the night, Arthur must have dropped off. Because, when he awoke, Merlin’s face was so pale and still that it made his chest hurt. He had to press a hand to Merlin’s ribs, and, keeping it there, lie awake like that, watching his hand move with each breath. Feeling the steady thump, thump of Merlin’s heart beneath his fingers.

Light was filtering through the thick material of the tent and Mordred and Percy had gone out to dig for snow to make more tea by the time that Merlin’s eyes flickered open again. His face was desperately pale, but his skin was at least warm now, and the pained line between his eyes had gone.

Arthur’s hand stayed where it was.

“Nice of you to join us for breakfast, Merlin.” Arthur tried to disguise the worry in his voice as lighthearted banter, and hoped that it came off. “It’s nearly noon, lazybones. Some people have no stamina.”

“Prat!” Merlin’s voice was no less wavery. “I’d like to see how you feel after punching a couple of tent-shaped holes through a hurricane for hours on end.”

With a sudden sense of shame, Arthur realised that Merlin’s eyes were brimming with tears.

Without pausing to consider the consequences, he pulled Merlin in for a hug as he wept, pressing his lips to Merlin’s messy hair in mute apology. He could still feel Merlin’s ribs even through the thick layers of fleece and cotton underclothing, and held on as if he never wanted to let go.

“Always knew you were a girl,” Arthur said through a veil of his own tears.

“Fuck off.” Merlin laughed – more of a breathy, hysterical exhalation than a laugh.

And that’s when Arthur knew. They were going to be okay.

“Camp meeting. Girls’ tent, ten minutes. Got it?” Arthur frowned at Percy and Mordred.

Mordred nodded.

He brought his head back into the tent and zipped it up. Inside, Merlin was just finishing pulling on his under-gear and getting ready to don his snow togs for the short tramp between tents.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.” Merlin grinned and put up two thumbs.

Wind-blown ice caked the base of the tents, making it difficult to get in and out. Outside the horizon, so clear and wide the day before, was hidden behind a blanket of mist. The wind, though no longer biting in its intensity, kept up a relentless barrage against the camp. It wasn’t possible to try to get back to the station right away. Instead they’d have to hunker down in the camp and wait for the weather to improve.

Arthur sighed. Another day of dried rations and tea didn’t really appeal compared to Gwaine’s cooking, but on the plus side he would have a chance to get to the bottom of what had happened.

They sat cross-legged in a circle and munched through hot soup and tea, then Arthur nodded over to Mordred and Kara.

“You first,” he said. “Tell us what you’re doing here. You’re meant to be back at Tintagel.”

Mordred licked his lips and looked down at the floor of the tent, but Kara glared at him defiantly.

“The dragon eggs,” she said. “We couldn’t let you destroy them. It would be an appalling act of destruct— inhumanity to destroy such usef— such amazing creatures.”

“Yes, I know that.” Arthur rolled his eyes. “But what I don’t understand is how you even knew that they were there!” She was hiding something, he could hear it in the way that she kept correcting herself.

“Kara knew,” said Merlin, softly. “Kara knew even before she came to the Antarctic. Didn’t you Kara?”

Kara’s eyes widened, then, and her mouth opened. But she didn’t say anything.

“Arthur was wrong to try to destroy the dragons. You’re right about that. But what you’re planning is even worse, Kara Sheelin. You and your mother. You planned it all along, didn’t you? But now you’re having second thoughts.”

She swallowed, and her hand reached out for Mordred’s.

“What’s going on?” said Arthur, looking from Merlin to Kara and back again. “Merlin?”

But Merlin wasn’t looking at him.

“Kara knows,” he said softly. “Don’t you Kara Sheelin? You, and your mother. Nimueh. Nimueh Síodh  Linn. The Irish spelling confused me for a while, but you must be related.”

“So what if we are?”

“Your mother filed a patent to exploit the dragons. You’re here to steal the eggs, aren’t you?”

Kara looked scared.

“Mum wanted me to,” she said, sounding choked. “But… but I don’t know any more. He was so beautiful! And he saved Mordred…”

“Don’t be upset, _cariad,_ ” said Mordred, putting his arm round her. “I’m safe now. We both are.”

But he was looking straight at Merlin, who went silent for a moment and then nodded as if in acknowledgement to a private conversation.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” said Merlin. “I thought it was Mordred, following us round, but it wasn’t, was it? It was Kara. You’ve been spying on me. On me and Arthur. For ages. Haven’t you?”

Kara bit her lip, but didn’t deny anything.

“Why? Are you gathering intelligence?”

“My mother said—” Kara’s shoulders heaved and she seemed close to tears. “I didn’t know, Merlin. She said that you knew where the missing clutch was, she said to tell her when you found it, and to make sure that I followed you. I— I don’t—”

“Did Nimueh conceive you just after coming to Antarctica? Did she?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I’m not sure.” Merlin frowned. “But I think I’m beginning to understand something.”

He wouldn’t say anything more, even after Arthur pressed him, protesting that he wasn’t sure about anything. And that’s when Arthur remembered the other thing.

There’d been something, a dark square shape among the eggs that he’d been trying to destroy, When the dragon had lifted them all to safety, he’d dropped it at Arthur’s feet. With an exclamation, Arthur rummaged in his backpack and withdrew it.

“Which reminds me. Here,” he said, passing it to Merlin. “The dragon wanted you to have this.”

“What?” Merlin’s eyes were huge in the dim light from the lamp hanging in the tent.

“Close your mouth, Merlin, you’ll catch flies.”

It was another field notebook. Identical to the one that Merlin had been poring over for all these years. The dragons had been protecting it, as part of their hoard.

There was silence in the tent while Merlin scanned the notebook. Apart from the occasional rustle of a turning leaf, that is.

Unable to stand the tension for a moment longer, Arthur willed himself not to look. Instead, he busied himself making tea for everyone, dispatching Percy to check on the skidoos with Freya, and while they were at it to contact Mithian via the radio. Mordred and Kara got to work sorting out their supplies. They only had enough for four people for two weeks, rather than six, due to the unplanned nature of Mordred and Kara’s expedition, and he would be balling them out for that later. But eventually they ran out of chores, and Merlin was still reading, the tip of his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth.

“There’s another mesocyclone brewing,” said Freya, re-entering the tent and zipping it securely behind her. “A nasty one. Mithian thinks we should sit tight. Should be all clear in forty-eight hours.”

Arthur ground his jaw. Over that time frame, they could manage with the provisions they’d got, but it would be another disturbed night. He wasn’t sure whether Merlin was up to shielding the tent again. It would be as well to secure everything.

“Come on Merlin,” said Freya, kneeling by his side with a hand on his shoulder. “Drink some tea, and then talk to us. I think Arthur is going to explode if you don’t tell him something soon.”

Merlin looked up, then, his eyes blank and unfocussed for a second, and then blinked.

“Right.” His tongue flicked out to moisten his lower lip, and he looked down at the notebook again. “I suppose so. Erm. Okay. Tea. Thanks, Frey. It’s not a field notebook. This one.” He looked straight at Arthur. “It’s a diary.”

Merlin’s eyes were clouded by something that Arthur couldn’t quite identify at first. But then his heart started to pound when he realised that it was sympathy.

“Here,” said Merlin, handing it to him carefully as if it contained high explosive, which perhaps, in a way, it did. “You should read it, Arthur.”

Frowning, Arthur took the book and leafed through it.

Many of the entries in the diary were quite mundane.

_13th December 1983_

_First trip to see the penguins today! They’re such adorable little chaps, they look like little waiters in their black-and-white suits. But boy, do they stink!_

Arthur smiled, remembering his own first visit to a penguin colony.

Others entries were more wistful. He picked one at random from later in the book.

_23rd May 1984._

_The Aurora Australis. Ah! There’s a sight I thought I’d never see. I wish my beloved could be here to see it with me. I miss her so terribly. I wish I could speak to her. But the satellite phones are for emergencies only. And what would I say to her, if we could speak?_

_Ah, my darling Hunith, I would say. I love you so. If only you could see this amazing cosmic energy. I wish you were here with me. It is my biggest regret that I am here without you. Or… no, my biggest regret is that I have not been able to give you children._

_I am so sorry this job takes me away from you for so long. dear Hunith. I know you can’t bear to be alone. Perhaps, when I return, we can try one more time for a child._

No wonder Merlin had looked round-eyed and sorrowful when he finished reading. But what did Balinor’s words have to do with him, Arthur?

Puzzled, he turned the page again and was instantly gripped.

_12th January 1984_

_It is unusual for a married couple to be allowed onto the ice. It can cause so much tension, especially amongst those of us who have had to leave our loved ones behind. I can’t help resenting their happiness. I’m glad they are not staying for the winter._

_But I can see why Uther loves Ygraine so. She is both beautiful and smart, and has the most delightful ease of manner to her. Her fragile-looking exterior belies a surprising strength. She can give even Nimueh a run for her money in arm-wrestling._

_But I wonder if she realises how much Nim adores her. Nim’s eyes follow them around the room. All the time. I’m a bit worried, sometimes. Nim is very intense._

“Bloody hell,” Arthur said out loud.

“What?” said Kara.

“There’s stuff in here about my parents. About my mum.” A sudden thought hit him. “And… _” And Kara’s mother, too._ He decided not to finish the sentence. Breathing hard, he flipped the leaf over,

“Read it aloud, mate,” said Freya. “We’re dying over here.”

“Yeah.” Percival was so soft spoken, you sometimes forgot he was there.

Swallowing, Arthur read on, but this time out loud.

_14th February 1984_

_What an extraordinary day. The penguins are long gone now, so instead on a rare day off we went to explore an ice cave that Uther found a couple of years ago. Ygraine was keen to take some pictures._

_I decided to tag along, because I feel nervous about leaving them alone with Nim. I’ve just got a weird instinct about her._

Kara shuffled, and started to speak, but the others shushed her.

_The ice cave was staggering. It was immense – full of blue light and spectacular stalactites. But that wasn’t the most amazing thing we saw. For deep within the ice, far from the sky, were a clutch of the most extraordinary eggs. Uther wanted to dig them out with his ice axe, but that would have damaged them. Ygraine stopped him._

_We’ve set up camp here and will stay for a few days while we work out how to get them out._

Biting his lip, Arthur flipped forward a few more pages.

“My mother loved the eggs, it says here,” he said. “And then an extraordinary thing happened. She was nearly killed, she fell into a crevasse. And the dragons came. And they saved her. They saved my mother. My father must have lied. They can’t have killed her. They saved her, like they saved me.” His voice was now no more than a whisper, and he was grateful for the gloom inside their tent. “My father lied,” he added again, his vision blurring.

 _They are extraordinary, compassionate creatures,_ the entry said. _They broke Ygraine’s fall and healed her injuries. Uther was enormously grateful. And it seemed almost as if they could speak to us. I am sure one of them was laughing. I am determined more than ever to find out more about these creatures. I am so grateful that I will stay in Antarctica for the winter. Who knows what I may discover about them in that time?_

There was a gentle pressure at his shoulder, reassuring. Arthur leaned into it, comforted.

“Arthur,” said Merlin. “It seems we were all deceived, in some way. But none more than you.”

“And what of my mother?” Kara’s eyes were huge and round. “You’re not the only one whose parent has been hiding things.” She stretched out her hand, and Arthur put the notebook into it.

Just then an icy blast shook the tent, making the sides billow and the poles sway, reminding them where they were. Stranded, in the path of an approaching mesocyclone, in a tent, miles from any shelter.

“Whatever happened back then,” said Arthur, urgently, “whatever our parents may have done, we need each other right here. Right now. We depend on each other and must be able to trust one another. Is that clear?”

“Aye, sir!” Mordred was the first to react, and the others all responded enthusiastically, but the steady warmth of Merlin’s hand on his shoulder told him where his closest ally was.

“It’s the penguins I feel sorry for,” said Freya.

The laughter released a bit of the tension.

By the time they got back to Tintagel, three days later, they were all a lot better acquainted. That night, Arthur fell into his comfortable bunk with a grateful groan, and was out for the count within minutes.

But it was the hot breakfast – the fresh baked bread and the mouthwatering bacon rolls, together with a well-earned bowl of cornflakes, albeit with the milk substitute that they used on the base, that really made him feel a sense of homecoming.

“Gwaine. Mate.” He ladled second helpings onto his plate, “I love you like a brother, you know that?”

“Cupboard love.” Gwaine winked and slyly flipped another rasher onto his roll. “Still, I’m glad to hear it, Princess,” he said. “You can make it up to me in beer when we get back to Albion.”

“Hold on a second, no need to bankrupt me.” Squirting a thick blob of ketchup and an equally thick blob of mustard onto his roll, he pressed the bread halves together and carried it over to the table where Merlin was sitting chatting with Mordred, while Kara buried her nose into a vat of strong, black coffee.

“… blamed me for everything,” Merlin was saying, pointing at Arthur as he approached. “He was yelling at me like some kind of posh, blond avenging angel. When it was actually Leon’s fault, all along!”

Laughing, Mordred looked up at him and moved over to let him sit down.

“Merlin was just telling us how the two of you first met,” he said, slathering marmalade onto his toast.

Arthur rolled his eyes.

A happy hum of conversation filled the room as they ate, but by the time the meal was finishing up, and they were washing it down with great mouthfuls of hot coffee, an expectant hush fell.

Arthur stood up and tapped his Arsenal mug with a teaspoon.

“As you may have heard, we have just had a rather more eventful expedition to visit the penguins than originally planned.” He pulled himself up to his full height and gazed sternly round the room. “This is in part due to unforeseen circumstances, and partly because several people, myself included, did not follow protocol. As you know, the procedures are there for all our safety. And therefore we must discuss in full the reason for these breaches, and consider the best course of action. As I am intimately involved in the affair, I hereby pass on my responsibilities as station commander to Mithian, with immediate effect.”

Ignoring the gasps and hubbub in the room that greeted this statement, he turned to Mithian, who was staring at him, mouth wide open, shaking her head.

“Do you accept?”

He could see her jaw tensing but after a moment she nodded.

“I accept,” she said, clearly and strongly. She clapped her hands together, and everyone fell silent. “I’ll take statements from you all. Leon, Owain, Gareth, Edwin and Gwaine will be the jury. The rest of you as witnesses will keep silent until asked.”

An overwintering team in the Antarctic did not have the luxury of a tribunal to decide on appropriate actions in cases where people did not follow safety protocols. Instead, the agreement between them was to accept the judgment of their peers and station commander. It wasn’t often needed, but Arthur felt that in this case everything should be out in the open.

“Please raise your hands if you accept our judgment.” Her voice had taken on an air of authority, and Arthur felt himself relax as he raised his hand, at the same time as everyone else.

The jurors turned over all the evidence and picked at it until there were no more secrets, as far as Arthur could tell. In an unorthodox trial such as this one, some awkward truths were unearthed that would never see the light of day in an ordinary court room. But Arthur endured the questioning, knowing that it was necessary for the base to function for the rest of the Winter. Their very survival depended on trust.

“Kara and Mordred,” said Mithian. “Are you still wedded to the idea that the dragons can be harvested as an energy source?”

“No,” said Kara, turning to Mordred. From where Arthur was sitting, he could see that their hands were tightly clutched together. “Now that I’ve seen them I… They saved Mordred!”

“Merlin. Can you carry on working with Arthur? Do you trust him anymore?” Leon, as one of Arthur’s oldest friends, knew more than anyone how much the answer mattered to him – on a personal, as well as a professional level.

Studying Merlin out of the corner of his eye, Arthur could see his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

“I think I understand him better now,” said Merlin.

Surprised, Arthur looked up, and met his eyes. Merlin was looking straight at him when he added, “and myself, as well.”

Now what did that mean? Arthur didn’t have time to ponder, because Gwaine was speaking.

“Well, I think you all need to apologise to Perce and poor old Frey, here, who seem to have been pretty heroic. And I reckon you should all have to do their laundry for at least a month.”

There was a brief ripple of laughter when Leon made a ribald comment about Percival’s socks, but Mithian held her hand up and they all fell quiet.

“Look, the circumstances were unusual, and you all pulled together in the end, but really, you should have known better. You could all have been killed – and you endangered each other in the process. Merlin, you should never have gone off on your own like that. Arthur, your attempted attack on an unknown Antarctic species was both illegal and unforgivable. If you had succeeded, the consequences would have been grave both for you and for Albion’s standing in the international community. And Kara and Mordred – I don’t need to tell you how irresponsible your actions were. Stealing a skiddoo and disappearing without notifying the station commander – it’s borderline insane.”

The four of them shuffled their feet awkwardly.

“Gwaine’s right. You’re all going to be doing extra chores. Arthur, an additional shift each day on the sewerage system for you. Merlin, Percival’s laundry. Kara, Freya’s.”

Arthur was ninety percent certain that Merlin would cheat and use his magic, but in many ways his was the lesser crime, so he kept quiet.

“Mordred, you’re on digging and snow-melting duty for the water tanks. For a month. Don’t groan, it’ll be good for your upper body strength.”

She banged the blunt end of her knife on the table. “Court dismissed – Oh, and don’t ever scare me like that again, or I’ll have all your balls and ovaries and I’ll hang them out to freeze on the observation deck barbecue. Do I make that quite clear?”

Mithian was quite scary when she put her mind to it.

By the time he’d helped to unpack and clean all the expedition kit, checked on his algae, and adjusted the bacterial mix in the sewerage system, it was late. After a quick shower, he slipped into the room, expecting Merlin to be in bed already, but he wasn’t there.

Eventually, Arthur found him on the observation deck, gazing at the Aurora Australis, which today was a quiet, green glow, reflecting off the ice shelf like a carpet of sparkling, undulating grass. Glittering icicles hung from the metal of the deck fencing, itself thickly encrusted with ice. The landscape looked surreal and otherworldly, as if they’d been dropped onto another planet, one where dragons roamed freely in a shimmering, green sky. Arthur half expected twin suns to rise and alien space ships to dart across the field of view.

“You going to stay out here sulking until you turn into a pillar of ice?” He crossed the deck, and stood for a moment with Merlin, their breath billowing out in great clouds around them.

“I’m not sulking, Arthur.” Merlin’s voice was serious. “I meant what I said. I can understand you much better now. But I can’t forget easily.”

“If it helps, at all, I’m so, so sorry. For hurting you like that. Truly sorry. I heard your scream, and it nearly killed me”

“And yet, you carried on.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I thought they killed my mother. I thought - I’d always assumed that Father had brought one back. To Albion, I mean. But then, when I saw that photo and realised that my mother had been in Antarctica with him when they found the eggs… I was even more convinced that they had killed her. But of course that didn’t make sense. She must have been alive when she left Antarctica. Or I would never have been born.“

Merlin looked down at his toes and then straight at Arthur, his eyes a piercing gold, and warmth stole through him. Merlin’s magic, which felt like love. For a moment, Arthur basked in it, wishing that he could deserve it.

“I can feel them, you know,” Merlin whispered, his eyes still glowing. “I can hear them, and I can reach out to them, and they let me fly with them. They call to me. Dragonborn, they call me.”

Fascinated, Arthur reached for his bare hand.

“Can you show me?”

 

When their fingers touched, the sensation rushed through him like a drug, making him feel giddy and reckless with the sheer euphoria. Briefly, he soared, weightless, icy gusts pummeling his wingtips, the furnace-like heat of his magic like a knot of fire behind his breastbone, and then in a breath he was back on his feet with the wind whistling round him and Merlin’s eyes, blue and concerned, peering at him.

“Was that okay?” said Merlin. “I didn’t give you too much?”

“How can you stand it? How do you ever stop?” Arthur was breathing heavily, his body filled with longing, for the exquisite freedom to soar above the ice and know he was master of the sky.

“It’s hard, sometimes.” Merlin’s eyes were sad. “But… this might sound sentimental to you, but…”

“But what, Merlin.”

“Love. Love can bring me back.” Merlin nodded. “There. I’ve said it.”

Between one breath and the next, their mouths met.

“You have it,” said Arthur, fiercely, pulling Merlin in and holding on to him. “Every fibre of me is reaching for you. Can’t you feel it?”

Merlin’s lips were swollen and chapped, like Arthur’s. He kissed them hungrily, bumping noses, his hand lined up along Merlin’s cheek, soft and new-shaven under his fingers.

“Thought I’d lost you.” Merlin’s voice shook, “There, in the cave. It felt as if that crevasse had opened up and sucked my heart into it. I can’t lose you, Arthur. I can’t. Don’t ever go.”

“Hush.” Arthur would accuse Merlin of being a girl, but his own eyes were wet. Merlin’s eyes were like the fathomless ocean, black and blue, deep and desperate. “I’m here. I’m not leaving. Not now, not ever.”

For a long time they stood and kissed beneath the stars, tracing promises along each other’s skin with lips and teeth and tears, and then as the tremors became shivers they broke away and stole back to their cabin. Where Arthur slid into Merlin, hot and smooth and sweet like velvet and honey, and wondered that the heat of their lovemaking didn’t melt the ice for a mile in all directions around them.

The next day, when they awoke, tangled and sweaty-limbed, Merlin’s hip was bare and a dragon birthmark had etched itself into the skin of Arthur’s shoulder where it settled, contentedly, as if it had always been there.

“You’re mine, now,” said Merlin, tracing it with his lips and his tongue until Arthur writhed beneath him, breathless with want and silent agreement.

By October, it was time for everyone at Tintagel station to start preparing for the first wave of incomers. Some of them had already started to gather at Rheged, and the first plane was due at the more remote Tintagel in just over a month.

The atmosphere on the station was relaxed and purposeful, and although there had been a couple more trips out to the penguins Arthur had kept to his word and the dragon cave remained out of bounds to all visitors.

He would be glad to see the back of Percival’s laundry. Although he had developed a technique for avoiding breathing in the fumes from the famous socks, the smell had a habit of permeating his nostrils anyway.

This morning, while his nose was still scrunched up, Mordred and Freya came into the laundry room.

“Doing Kara’s chores for her again, Mords?” he said, nodding at the pile of pink thermal undergarments. “It must be love, mate. And isn’t she meant to be doing your laundry, Frey?”

“She’s not feeling a hundred percent, today.” Mordred looked a bit sheepish. “She threw up when she woke up, so I sent her back to bed. Don’t suppose you fancy coming out to the meteorological station with me today do you?“

“Sure, why not?” Merlin had been planning to write up the latest measurements on this year’s emperor penguin young, but that could wait. “A trip out would do me good. But Freya, you’re not meant to be doing your own laundry!”

“I don’t really mind, to be honest,” said Freya. “Kara’s not been well for a few days, now, anyway. And I’d rather I did my laundry than Mordred. No offence, Mordred, but my experience is that men don’t read the care labels.”

“Well I hope she gets better soon.” Merlin closed the door on the washing machine with relief, and twirled the knob to the _delicate coloureds_ setting before pressing the _on_ button. “But are you sure she’s not just caffeine deprived? Normally a bucket of strong black stuff does the trick.”

“Yeah I know.” Mordred’s face scrunched up into a mask of worry. “She’s been acting a bit strangely recently. Gone right off coffee one minute, demanding biscuits the next.”

“Oh my God!” said Freya, eyes widening. “How long’s she been— I’ve got to go!”

“What?”

“Nothing! See you later!”

“Wait Freya, you forgot your—” but before Merlin could finish the sentence, she was gone. “Detergent,” he added lamely to the slammed door.

“You coming to the gym, tonight, Kar?” said Freya.

Kara was feeling much better after a hearty helping of chicken, peas and noodles, although the smell of the chilli sauce that Mordred lathered all over his helping did make her feel a little nauseous.

“Sure, I’d love to.” It was Wednesday night, after all. An evening free of speculation about the next weekend’s premiership fixtures would be most welcome, even if she only put in a desultory half hour on the rowing machine.

Freya had been so lovely all week, but this evening she was acting a bit oddly. Take now, for example. Before Kara could tuck into her second portion of chocolate cake, Freya was pushing it away and urging her to eat some newly defrosted raspberries instead.

“They’re much more nutritious,” said Freya, eyes full of concern. “Have you ever considered vitamin D supplements?”

“Thanks, mum.” Kara rolled her eyes. “ I think I can decide for myself what to have for pud.” She reached for the cake and stuffed it into her mouth with a blissful groan. “Gwaine, this is to die for!”

“Glad you like it Kara,” said Gwaine, before returning to his muttered discussion with Leon, Owain and Gareth about Harry Kane’s latest performance at White Hart Lane.

When she got down to the gym, both Freya and Mithian were already there, and they fell silent when she entered.

“What’s up?” she said, looking from one of them to the other.

“How’s it going with Mords, Kar?” Freya’s eyes were kind, as always. “Been shagging a lot?”

Kara blushed, and busied herself with her bag. “He’s pretty amazing, actually,” she said. “And he fancies me rotten, which is always a plus. Did you realise he’s telepathic?”

“When was the last time you had a period, Kar?” Mithian was toying with a plastic bag that contained what looked like a box, although Kara couldn't make the writing out through the wrapper.

Kara shrugged. “Not for ages. But then, I don’t really, not with my polycystic ovaries. I had one in May, I think?”

“And the thing with the healing dragons – that was in August, right?” said Freya.

Puzzled about where this was going, Kara nodded.

Sighing, Mithian handed her the bag. “Try this, tomorrow morning,” she said. “And then we can talk.”

“Talk about what?” She looked inside. And then the penny dropped. “Fuck. I’ve been so dense.”

Summer was coming, and with it the supply planes and flights that would mark the end of their sojourn. Merlin couldn’t help feeling a sense of impending doom. After all the drama of the winter months, the spring was proving to be eventful in other, much more gratifying ways. Quite apart from the whole Antarctic experience, which he didn’t feel ready now to leave, there was the whole thing with Arthur.

While he and Arthur had not been making a secret of their burgeoning relationship, they hadn’t exactly broadcast it either. Merlin appreciated the rare luxury of privacy that life in a remote Antarctic station afforded them. The thought of having to explain everything to friends and family filled him with gloom.

Which is why one evening found him in the library, with the low sun filtering in through the rime-encrusted window and lighting the ceiling in shades of pale gold and mandarin.

“Found you at last! What are you doing?” Arthur’s voice was loud in the hush.

“Writing to my mum,” said Merlin, shuffling bits of paper about.

“Why don’t you just write her an email?”

“I will, nosy parker, I just need to get my notes on paper first.”

“Can I see?”

“No!” Merlin snatched the papers away from Arthur’s inquisitive hand. “Fuck off!”

“I’ll tickle you until you let me,” said Arthur, leaning in and inserting an expert finger under Merlin’s fleece.

“Bully!” Laughing, Merlin creased up and flapped ineffectually at Arthur with the sheaf of paper.

Arthur responded to this with a growl, and within seconds had Merlin pinned to the floor, strong hands on his shoulders, muscular thighs straddling his hips.

“Do you submit?”

“Never, you prat!” Merlin was just about to throw Arthur off with a quick blast of his magic, when the door burst open.

“Arthur! Where’s Mer— ah!” Gwaine’s voice petered out. “There you are. Jesus, Arthur, can’t you shag him in your own cabin?”

Looking suitably sheepish, Arthur rose to his feet and dusted himself off.

“He started it,” he said.

Merlin’s jaw dropped at this clear lie.

“Whatever, Princess,” said Gwaine, before Merlin could protest. “Merlin, come quickly. It’s the dragons, they’re here. All of them.”

“What do you mean, all of them?”

“Come and see!” 

From the top of the ladder, Merlin could see them, there must have been two dozen at least, huge, hulking shapes in myriad colours that clung to the ice by their claws as if standing on tiptoe, the largest at the front of the group, the smallest hidden behind them. Stunned, he shimmied down the ladder and crossed the ice, noting vaguely the way that they stabilised their stance with their wings and tail, only touching the ice by the claw tips. His initial thought was that so many huge, warm bodies would melt the ice but as he got closer he realised that their natural stance went some way towards preventing that.

The overwhelming stench of decaying fish that assailed his nostrils as he drew nearer reminded him of the penguin colony.

“Bloody hell!” Arthur was just behind him, his boots crunching across the well-trodden ice at the foot of the ladder.

One by one Merlin dropped his mental barriers, until only the diamond-hard inner one that guarded his most treasured secrets remained. He gasped when he felt the alert, inquisitive consciousnesses that had assembled before them.

Dragons in every hue stared at him, large and small, bright and dull. With his hypersenses extended, they shone more brightly than all the humans on the station.

Except Arthur, of course. Arthur shone like the sun.

The zoologist in him noted that their blinking eyes were covered with a nictitating membrane, like a snake’s, presumably to protect their eyes from the cold, dry air and piercing sun. Subconsciously noting the leathery skin of their wings, and making mental calculations about the density of bones and the weight to surface area ratios, he reached the front rank of animals and stopped.

He had so many questions that he was struck dumb. What did they eat? How did they mate? How did they prevent their blood from freezing? What was the secret of their fire? He wished Gaius was here.

Some inner instinct led him to the great dragon who had saved them, and another prompted him to kneel reverently,

“Oh great dragon.” The cold, hard ice hurt his knees. “I wish to thank you for your healing and your help. What can we do for you?”

“We wish contact with the youngling dragonborn, young warlock,” he said. “So that our young may be bonded together with yours as they would have been centuries ago.”

“Well, Kara’s probably the youngest,” he said, puzzled. “But she’s not been feeling well, I think she might have gone to b—”

But the cryptic old beast raised his head and roared, flames gushing from his mouth. The rush of reek and heat made Merlin gag. Something in his disapproving reaction must have agitated the rest of the flock, because suddenly an array of wings were aloft and flapping noisily, and then some of them took to the air. With a shock, he realised that the smallest of them were barely the size of a cat – tiny, vividly coloured creatures that raised a raucous chatter as they skittered and squawked.

“We healed the dragonborn. And now it’s her unborn that we seek,” he said, his voice clear in Merlin’s head. Raising his own wings, which were long and thin like a skua’s, he added: “We will return, and you will bring her to us.”

“Come back soon!”

“We will.” The dragonish chuckle was loud in his head. “The dragonborn are our gifts to you humans, young warlock. Cherish them, they hold the key to the future.”

With these last words he turned, his great long tail spinning out behind him like a whip, so that Merlin had to jump back to avoid getting caught in it as he leapt skywards. The whole noisy, smelly mass of dragons beat their wings, until the air thrummed and gusted about them and he had to hold his hands to his ears against the din.

Arthur stood with him, watching them diminish to specks, then a multi-hued cloud, until they vanished altogether in the distance.

“What was that all about?” Mordred had joined them, and looked as puzzled as Merlin felt.

“I don’t know for sure,” said Merlin. “He said that he healed the dragonborn – but I thought that he meant me, and Arthur.”

A sudden thought assailed him, but he squashed it. Kara was far too sensible, he thought. All the girls had had one of those 3-year contraceptive implants before they left Albion.

Hadn’t they?

Arthur stared at the computer screen, finger hovering over the trackball. He hadn’t opened any of his father’s emails for several months. But the time was coming, when contact would resume with the outside world. Even now, the first supplies were being loaded onto planes at Rheged station. And with them the first of the summer visitors - a varied selection of scientists, engineers and technicians, each of them bringing their own visions, ideas. and challenges.

He couldn’t put it off forever.

Thus resolved, he was just about to click the most recent email – entitled “URGENT: Report to me at once” – when the door burst open and Merlin entered their room. Merlin’s hair was sticking up in wild clumps and his cheeks were dusted with about a week’s stubble. He looked good enough to eat with a spoon. That was the thing about Merlin. The scruffier and more unwashed he looked, the more Arthur wanted to pin him down onto the bed and clean him up. With his tongue.

He’d be lying if he said he was ungrateful for the interruption.

“Arthur! There you are! I need to talk to you. It’s Kara.”

“What about her?” Closing his laptop with a put-upon sigh, Arthur gestured to Merlin’s bed.

“You know she’s been sick a lot recently, right?” Merlin sat, cross-legged, his eyes dark with concern.

“Yeah? Is she feeling better?”

“No, that’s the point Arthur. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her, though. You know, the dragons talk to me, in my head.”

This was another thing about Merlin. He said things like that as if it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to carry on mental conversations with mythical relics from the Jurassic.

“If you say so,” Arthur kept his features neutral, waiting for the punchline.

Which Merlin delivered flawlessly.

“I think she’s pregnant,” he said. “The dragons keep saying stuff about the unborn dragonborn one. I think there are three dragonborn: you, me, and Kara. And I think they did something to her, they unsterilised her or something, and I think she and Mordred have. You know. Made a baby.”

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose. He could really do without this sort of thing. He had enough on his plate trying to solve problems like the accelerating global greenhouse emissions, magical boyfriends, and the sudden emergence of telepathic reptilians, without having to cope with an Antarctic pregnancy as well. But the trouble was, the more he thought about it, the more plausible it sounded. The women on Tintagel had been awfully defensive of Kara for the last couple of weeks. Freya in particular had been clucking like a mother hen.

“Oh, dear God,” he whispered. He wondered how many of them were in on it. Kara, for sure. Freya and Mithian. Merlin. Who else might have twigged? “Does Mordred know yet?”

“I don’t know,” said Merlin. “But the dragons are asking to meet the unborn. I don’t know what to do.”

They exchanged a loaded look for a moment. Merlin’s t-shirt was untucked, and his neck stretched, long and inviting, up to where his ears stuck out from a ridiculous tuft of hair.

“Nothing,” said Arthur at last, when he’d looked his fill. The warm feeling that Merlin’s magic always gave him spread across him like a lover’s touch. “We do nothing.”

“You don’t think we should talk to her?” Merlin’s tongue came out to moisten his lower lip.

“Not right now, no. There’s something urgent we have to do first.”

“Oh? How urgent?”

“Very urgent. Terribly urgent. Desperately urgent.” Arthur couldn’t remember crossing the room, but the feeling of Merlin’s stubbly cheeks and neck under his tongue was only part of what he craved.

But the feeling of Merlin, gasping and writhing beneath him, their erections brushing together, hot and slick, was getting closer.

And when Merlin opened up and let him in, hot and tight and perfect, that was everything he needed and more.

When the first planes arrived in mid November, Merlin was understandably tense.

“Calm down, Merlin. They’re not going to eat you.” Arthur fiddled with the zip on his jacket.

They were standing on the observation deck. On fine days like this, the sky stretched over them, infinite and impossibly blue, matching the deep crevices in the ice, But despite the clear weather, the wind chill still bit through their clothes, and the metal rails around the deck were still thickly coated in rime and icicles.

“Really? Then why have you adjusted your jacket fifteen times in the past three minutes?”

“I have not!” Arthur dropped his hand from his zip as if it was on fire.

They could see it in the distance, a tiny dot, so seemingly innocuous. As it grew larger and his sight allowed him to resolve the wings and fuselage of Hengroen, Merlin drew up his shoulders, taking a big breath in, and then dropped them, exhaling with a whoosh. He was looking forward to seeing some of Hen’s occupants. Elena for one.

Hengroen wasn’t the scary aeroplane. No, the plane that raised goosebumps on his clammy flesh and made his heart drum against his rib cage was the second dot, still far away. As it gradually drew nearer, Merlin could see its colour. Red. Pendragon red. Pendragon Oil red, to be precise.

Percy came out onto the observation deck, then, panting with exertion, yelled “Mith says all hands to the airstrip, pronto,” and disappeared.

“Well?” Arthur held out his hand. Jaw tense, mouth set, he looked ready for battle, except his eyes, soft and vulnerable, the colour of the glaciers and the sky. “Ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be!” Which was to say, not at all.

Uther Pendragon was even more intimidating in person than Merlin had imagined.

“Good morning, Father. Welcome to Tintagel.” Arthur held out a hand, which Uther grasped between both of his.

“Arthur,” said Uther, with a curt nod. “And this is?”

“Merlin. My partner.” They’d talked this over, and neither of them saw any point in dissembling. “He’s a zoologist.”

“And a warlock.” Uther didn’t try to hide his evident distaste in his words.

“That’s correct,” said Merlin, stepping forward, chin high. “I believe you knew my father. I’ve always wondered if you could shed some light on what happened to him.”

Uther’s eyes narrowed and he stared at Merlin, who drew himself up to his full height and glared right back.

“Ahem.” Elena’s cough eased the tension slightly – not least because it was such a joy to see her again. “I must say it’s very generous, Lord Pendragon, of Pendragon oil to offer such a substantial package of sponsorship to the Albion Antarctic Survey.”

With a firm-but-gentle-looking hand to Uther’s elbow, she steered him gently away from the business end of the sledge and towards a waiting skiddoo.

“You’ll find this very different from your last visit, I’m sure,” she added. “Perhaps this conversation could wait until later – over dinner, maybe?”

“Why yes, indeed, I was just about to say—”

“Ah! Lord Pendragon! My father has told me so much about you!” Mithian took his other arm and flashed Merlin a fierce look before adding a forceful hand to his shoulder. “Why don’t you come and have a look at the hydroponics room? Gwaine, our chef, calls it his crack den…”

Merlin was just beginning to think that with Elena’s charm and Mithian’s tact, everything was going to be all right. He even relaxed slightly into Arthur’s touch. Big mistake.

Because that’s when, with impeccable timing, Kara put in an appearance, Mordred on one side of her, and a tiny dragon, about the size of a labrador, hopping along on the other.

“What is the meaning of that!” bellowed Uther, extending a quivering digit.

“Ah, yes, father,” said Arthur quietly. “I was going to tell you about that. But then, given that you haven’t exactly been generous with the truth, I decided not to.”

“Kill it! Those things are dangerous!” yelled Uther, his face, what Merlin could see of it, livid with rage and fear.

And that’s when the next person descended from the plane – her diminutive figure failing to hide the formidable set of her jaw…

“Hello mama,” said Kara, stepping forward, the dragon skipping along by her side. Nimueh Síodh Linn looked nothing like Merlin had imagined. Somehow, he’d pictured her as a terrifying, hatchet-faced woman – the sort of woman who had terrorised the classrooms of his childhood. But her eyes were huge and blue, her lips red and full. She didn’t look old enough to be Kara’s mother.

“Kara, darling. So it is true, then.” She looked almost awe-struck as she laid a gloved hand on Kara’s belly, still flat and hidden under many layers. “I can see it. Ah, my love.” Her eyes were brimming with tears as they embraced.

When they broke apart, Nimue looked at the tiny dragon, which was nuzzling her hand like a cat, making fierce little mewling noises.

“This is Aithusa, mum,” The fondness in Kara’s eyes was evident. “She follows me round everywhere, but I’ve got quite used to it. She will come back to Albion with me. She and the baby are great gifts, mama. Freely given. The dragons wish to ally with us.”

“I can see that.”

“You didn’t need to come. I’m returning to Albion when this plane goes back anyway.”

“No, my love. You’re my daughter. Of course I needed to come. And when you explained the terms of the treaty with the dragons, Uther offered. So here I am.”

The planes had not finished discharging their cargo.

“Dear God,” murmured Arthur as the final visitor started to step down the gangway. “It’s a miracle the plane didn’t explode with all that vitriol inside.”

“So delightful to see you, little brother,” Morgana said with a haughty expression on her face that gave the lie to her words. “My, my. You have been busy."

“Morgana,” he replied, with a nod. “Looks like the gang’s all here.”

So that was Arthur’s sister.

“Not quite.” Merlin said. He could tell the plane was not yet empty.

“Wait. Don’t tell me Morgause is here.”

“Don’t be silly, little brother. Morgause has been arrested.” She seemed saddened by that. “For murder. Seems like you’re not the only one who’s been keeping secrets.” She nodded towards the exuberant dragon, which was flapping excitedly around Kara while her mother looked on, laughing.

“Arrested? What for?”

“Murder. She’d been trying to—”

“Wait.” Arthur frowned and held up a hand. “Tell me about this later. The weather is coming down; we need to get that plane unloaded. Now, there were not any more people on the schedule. The plane’s empty.”

“No it’s not.” Merlin had been reaching out with his consciousness. With a pang of recognition,he realised who else was on board. The excitement that rose within him was mixed with a sudden terrible sadness.

She looked forlorn and alone as she stepped carefully down the gangplank.

“Ah, yes.” Elena grinned at him. “Forgot to mention. Surprise!”

“Mum!” Running forward, arms outstretched, Merlin almost forgot to breathe. She seemed to have shrunk, somehow, as he wrapped her up in his arms.

“Merlin. My son.”

“It’s wonderful to see you! But what are you doing here?”

“There’s something I have to talk to you all about. All of you.” Hunith sighed, her eyes sorrowful.

“Ahem. I’m sorry to interrupt, Merlin, but we need to get going.” Arthur nodded at the horizon, and the distant blur of an approaching squall.

“Wait.” Merlin could feel something, an extra unresolved tension. Tentatively, he reached out with his hypersenses. There! “There’s someone else on the plane. The pilot.”

“Myror’s off already.”

“No, you prat!” Merlin bashed Arthur fondly on the arm. “Not Hengroen’s pilot. No I mean the pilot of the Pendragon Oil plane. I can feel him.” Merlin could feel an inquisitive presence, a nervousness that seemed odd on a pilot. There was something oddly familiar about it. “I’m sure he or she would appreciate a hot drink and a slice of Gwaine’s homemade pizza.”

Sure enough, the pilot emerged from the tiny cockpit, folded in two at first as he stepped out onto the fuselage, but then straightening, face hidden by his protective ear and eye gear. There was something about him, something that made Merlin’s skin prickle and his heart race. But it was only when the pilot had reached the ice, removed his gear and given his hair a shake that Merlin realised the reason why.

His hair was longer and greyer, and Merlin had only ever seen his picture, but he would know that face anywhere.

“You!” It was as if the whole world as he knew it had tilted and thrown him off balance. He even staggered slightly, bumping into Arthur who grabbed him, his hand a steadying presence. “But you’re dead!”

“I’m sorry, my son.” Balinor stepped forward and stopped just short of him, a hopeful expression on his face. “I hope you can forgive me. You’ve grown into a fine man. I’m so pr—”

Before he could think, before Arthur had time to stop him, Merlin lunged forward and punched his father as hard as he could on the nose.

“You bastard!” He yelled at the top of his voice, straining to escape from Arthur’s grip to give his father the kicking he deserved. Balinor’s nose was dripping, crimson onto the perfect blue-white of the ice shelf under their feet, and all around them the wind whipped the snow into tiny vortices in response to his anger. “You deserted her, you left us, how dare you! You let us believe you were dead! You… you… Will died because of you! You arrogant, irresponsible, philandering tosser! Get out of my life, I don’t need you!”

It felt good to yell and rage, felt good to let it all out, but he was dimly aware of the shocked faces that circled him, of how pale his mother had become. After a moment or two, he stopped struggling and stepped away, turning his back, ashamed.

“Hey,” said Arthur, his hand rubbing circles against Merlin’s back as he doubled over, nursing his sore hand. “And I thought I was the one with family problems.”

Of all the things that Merlin was expecting to do today, sitting in Edwin’s tiny clinic having his knuckles taped while his father bled through the nose onto a bandage wasn’t one of them.

“You must have fetched him a mighty crack, Merlin.” Arthur’s commentary wasn’t helping. “Can’t you just heal it with your…”

“No! It only seems to work on you, for some reason.” Something to do with the fact that he was hopelessly in love with the prat, probably. God, how had he managed to get himself into this shambles?

Considering the mess that Merlin had made of his nose, Balinor seemed remarkably chirpy about the whole thing. It might be something to do with the way that Merlin’s mother was fussing around him while Edwin tended to Merlin’s hand.

“There are too many people in this room,” said Merlin, morosely. “I’d appreciate some privacy.”

Arthur snorted. “Self inflicted wounds don’t merit privacy, Merlin.”

There was some undercurrent there, a bite to Arthur’s normally playful sarcasm that Merlin couldn’t quite fathom. He’d get to the bottom of it later, but right now all he could think about was the pain in his hand, and his heart.

They’d lied to him. All his life, his mother had lied. About something so fundamental, so critical to Merlin’s sense of self. How could she? How could they both? He couldn’t bring himself to look at them.

“Merlin, I’m so sorry.” His mother’s voice was fond, but wary. “It was necessary. Balinor’s life was in danger.”

“I don’t really feel like talking to you at the moment.” His voice sounded tight and strained, and his throat felt like he was swallowing nails, He just focussed on Arthur’s hand on his shoulder, on breathing in and out, on blinking back the tears so that they wouldn’t know unsettled he felt. “Will died. For that notebook. And he was alive all this time? And you knew?”

“I know Will was like a brother to you, Merlin. He was like a son to me, and I miss him too. But the murderer has been arrested, now. And the dragons have revealed themselves. It’s safe for Balinor to come out of hiding. Merlin, please. For my sake. I’m not asking you to forget Will. But please, at least give your father time to get to know you a little.”

Just then, Gwaine’s head popped round the door.

“All right, Merlin?”

“Oh, yeah, great.” Merlin scowled at him. “Here I am suffering a family crisis, in a remote part of the Antarctic ice shelf. Why don’t you just invite everyone to have a look?”

“Don’t be such a grumpy twat. I’ve brought you all tea.” As well as a large teapot, Gwaine’s trolley was laden with treats from the plane.

“What you need,” said Arthur, leaning forward to pick up a plate and offer it to him, “is a chocolate Hob-Nob.”

Merlin was still scowling, but selected a couple.

“Well doesn’t that take the biscuit!” said Gwaine with a face-splitting grin.

“Dork!” Merlin couldn’t help it. The tension burst out of him in peals of laughter, and he felt the atmosphere in the room thaw a little. “Mum, Balinor, look out for this idiot. His puns can cause permanent mental damage if you’re not prepared.”

“Wait!” Arthur, for once, didn’t join in the mirth. He was staring at Hunith, looking thunderstruck.

“Arthur?” Merlin reached out a hand, without thinking and then the pain made him wince.

“Did you just say murder?” Rising to his feet, face pale, Arthur added. “Who’s been arrested?”

“Yes,” said Hunith, looking puzzled. “Three people, actually. I finally set up CCTV and caught the people who had been snooping around looking for my notebooks. Two of them; a hired muscle type called Valiant, and a sinister creepy fellow called Cenred or something. It seems that this Cenred had hired out the Valiant chap to search my house. And then both of them said that they’d been hired by another person, a woman. The police think the same people are behind Will’s murder, Merlin. This Valiant chap – well, he sang like a canary, I think the phrase is.” From the way that her lips turned down at the edges, Merlin could tell that Hunith didn’t think much of Valiant. “I did tell Merlin, in my emails.”

“Oh, mum. I’m sorry.” In retrospect, probably Merlin should not have avoiding reading his emails from his mum. He’d not even opened the ones that said “URGENT: MERLIN READ THIS RIGHT AWAY!” in the subject line. Especially not those ones.

“And what was her name. This woman.” Arthur seemed agitated for some reason.

“Morgause. Morgause Le Fay, her name is—”

“Morgause Le Fay? I see.” Sighing heavily, turned to him. “I’m sorry, Merlin. Morgause is my sister’s half sister.

“Blimey, Princess,” exclaimed Gwaine as Merlin processed this nugget of information. “You posh types have bloody complicated families, that’s all I can say.” 

Uther gazed around the laughing, chattering people that had crowded onto the observation deck, and felt terribly alone. As he gazed over the ice sheet, stark in its endless blue-and-white beauty, the vista was filled with memories of Ygraine. Her smile, her laughter, the wisdom in her beautiful blue eyes. His line of sight took in Arthur, his head thrown back. So like her. So headstrong and compassionate. It made him want to weep.

“Sir?” It was Balinor’s son. Arthur’s partner, he’d said. That meant they were lovers, Uther supposed. The boy appeared thin and slightly gawky, but his eyes were kind. Like Ygraine’s. “Would you like a beer?”

“Thank you, Mr Emrys.”

“Call me Merlin, please.” The bottle gave out a tiny hiss as Merlin prized off the top. “Is this as strange for you as it is for me?” He nodded out over the deck towards Balinor.

Uther sighed, and didn’t reply for a moment. The girl, Kara, was talking to her mother, with a dragon flitting round her head. He wanted to swat it, as if it was a fly, but that was a reaction that he’d had to quash. To his surprise, he could see some beauty in its bright colours, its exuberant manner. It was as if scales were falling from his eyes.

“They healed her, I suppose. The dragons. They healed my Ygraine and gave us the son we’d always wanted. It was so long ago, that she died. I couldn’t bear to think that it was just childbirth that killed her.” He took a swig from his beer, looking far out, towards the horizon, as if he could see answers there. “Sometimes it’s easier to find someone to blame, than to accept what has happened. And obviously I couldn't’ blame Arthur. I think I began to believe my own lie.”

“Have you tried telling him that?”

Not normally given to discussing his feelings at all, let alone to complete strangers, Uther thought he was beginning to realise why his son felt so drawn to this curious man.

“No,” he said thoughtfully, “but I rather think that I will.”

For a moment, they stood in companionable silence, watching the ice and sky as the sun slowly dipped towards the horizon, not quite falling below it.

“I’m sorry,” Uther added, eventually. “About you, and your father, and your mother. It wasn’t your fault, and yet you all suffered, in a way. Keeping the dragons safe from me, and from Nimueh. I hope that in the end we can make amends.”

“I hope so too.” Merlin’s face was so full of love as he watched Arthur, as Arthur caught his eye and stopped his conversation, mid-flow, to stare back with a lopsided smile. The smile that he’d inherited from his mother, that filled Uther with such pride and joy and sorrow that he could burst from it.

Ah, Ygraine. The world was still lonely, without her, but it was growing brighter.

In the end, thought Uther, it came down to this. To love.

He raised his beer bottle, tapping Merlin's with a faint _chink_.

 

  **EPILOGUE**

 

It was a sparkling May Day. Digging his freezing cold feet into the wet sand, Merlin wiggled his toes, watching the way the grains washed over them until he could barely see his feet any more.

“You look like a tree.” Arthur patted the top of the ridiculous sand castle, with a triumphant smile. “There! My castle is complete!

“If I’m a tree, I’ll let you come and hug my trunk!” said Merlin, with a grin. He'd missed Arthur so much, while he was over at NASA for the past month working on a secretive xenobiology project. Mind you, he was enormously proud that his fiance was so much in demand. His Antarctic research into extremophile algae had born fruit, even not in the way that Arthur had originally intended. And wasn't that often the way, with science? 

“Don’t be disgusting, boys.” Gwen covered little Robin’s ears in mock outrage. “There are children present!”

“Tunk!” said Robin, patting the castle with his spade before attempting to shove a big fistful of sand into his mouth. Then, looking up, he pointed at the sky. “Pitty birdie.”

Following Robin’s finger, Merlin could just about make out a granular cloud, which seemed to be coming their way alarmingly fast.

“Oh no, I hope it’s not going to rain,” said Gwen. “I left Robin’s waterproofs at the lab creche.”

But Merlin was staring, incredulous, feeling his mouth stretch wide into a smile.

“Don’t worry, Gwen,” he said, jumping in the shallows, waving to the cloud, raising cold little splashes with his feet that made Arthur yell out in protest. “I don’t believe it! I wish Gaius was here! It’s the dragons!” Waving both hands over his head, he whooped. “Over here! Kilgarrah! Woohoo!”

“You’d think he’d have developed a more dramatic dragon-summoning spell by now,” said Arthur.

Soon, the sky was thick with reptilian bodies in all shades. They landed in front of Merlin, on the sea, on the beach, everywhere they could find space, raising plumes of water with their wings.

“What brings you here, oh great one?” said Merlin, waving to Arthur to shut up.

“It is time for the unborn to emerge,” said the dragon. “We heard her calling to us, and Aithusa as well. Bring us to the child! We have come to pay homage. We bring gifts!”

“Ri…ight.” It was true that Kara had gone into labour that morning, but Merlin’s head was suddenly filled with visions of the dragons cramming into the Camelot hospital maternity unit, bearing gifts of rancid fish. “Um.”

Luckily, Arthur had his wits about him, despite his jet lag.

“Perhaps we could bring her here when she’s ready? There’s plenty of water and sky to play in in the meantime.” He waved to the vast expanse of sea on Camelot’s doorstep.

Far out in the distance, a dolphin breached the water, and another, and another, a whole inquisitive podful.

Holding out his hand, Merlin grabbed Arthur’s and pulled their combined minds across the waves. Together, they swept through the water, towards the dragons who watched them and dived after them, swooping and tumbling, clicking and squealing, hearts and minds linked in friendship and play.

**THE END**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Researching Antarctic living has been a complete joy. If you should spot that Tintagel Station resembles British Antarctic Survey’s [Halley Station](https://www.bas.ac.uk/polar-operations/sites-and-facilities/facility/halley/), well, there’s a reason for that.


End file.
